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Orations  and  Arguments 


BY 


English  and  American  Statesmen 


EDITED,   WITH 
NOTES,  EXPLANATORY  AND  CRITICAL, 

BY 

CORNELIUS  BEACH  BRADLEY 

Propbssob  op  Rhbtoric  in  ths  Univbrsity 

OF  CAUrORNIA 


,     «     •  •    •  «     • 
,     ,  •• •  •    •  • 

•    •  •  ••   •    •• 

•  •     •     •  •      •    " 


•  •       •  .  •  • 


Boston 

ALLYN  AND  BACON 

1895 


-i> 


Y 


EDUCATICN  DEPI, 

Copt  RIGHT,  1W4, 
Bt  Cob»bhu8  B.  Mr  API  ft. 


Ttpooeapitt  bt  C.  J.  Pctem  ft  Sow,  BoeroN. 


PBE88WOSK  BY  BKBWI<;K  *  SMITII. 


PREFACE. 


The  purpose  of  this  book  is  to  furnish  a  collection  of 
oratorical  and  argumentative  masterpieces,  suitable  for  stu- 
dents in  the  schools  and  for  general  readers.  In  making 
the  selection  the  following  considerations  have  had  deter- 
mining weight :  1.  That  every  speech  includetl  should  be 
in  itself  memorable  —  a  great  utterance  upon  a  great  sub- 
ject, attaining  its  distinction  through  the  essential  qualities 
of  nobility  and  force  of  ideas,  rather  than  through  accidents 
of  occasion,  of  feeling,  or  of  rhetorical  display;  2.  That 
each  should  be  in  topic  so  related  to  the  great  thoughts, 
memories,  or  problems  of  our  own  time,  as  to  have  for  us 
still  an  inherent  and  vital  interest ;  3.  That  the  collection 
as  a  whole  should  include  material  enough  to  permit  of  a 
varied  selection  for  tlje  use  of  successive  classes  in  the 
schools. 

The  speeches  thus  chosen  have  been  printed  from  the 
best  available  texts,  without  change,  save  that  the  spelling 
has  been  made  uniform  throughout,  and  that  three  of  the 
speeches  —  those  of  Webster,  Calhoun,  and  Seward  —  have 
been  shortened  somewhat  by  the  omission  of  matters  of 
merely  temporary  or  local  interest.  Yet  even  the  omitted 
portions  have  been  summarized  for  the  reader,  whenever 
they  have  seemed  to  bear  upon  the  main  argument. 

In  the  preparation  of  the  notes,  it  has  been  the  aim  to 
furnish  the  reader  with  whatever  help  seems  necessary  to 
the  proper  understanding  and  appreciation  of  the  speeches ; 
to  avoid  bewildering  him  with  mere  subtleties  and  display 
of  erudition;  and  to  encourage  in  him  the  habit  of  self- 
help  and  the  familiarity  with  sources  of  information,  whuh 

Ui 


ivil9ai47 


iv  Preface, 

mark  the  scholar.  A  special  feature  of  this  part  of  tli- 
work  is  a  sketch  of  the  English  Constitution  and  Govern 
ment,  intended  as  a  general  introduction  to  the  English 
speeches. 

It  has  not  l)een  thought  best  to  propound  any  set  scheme 
for  instruction.  To  enter  into  the  high  thought  of  such 
si)eeches  as  these,  to  appreciate  the  masterly  forging  of  ar- 
gument, to  realize  the  far-reaching  force  and  application  ol 
ideas,  to  feel  the  uplift  of  noble  emotions  —  these  are  tlu 
ends  to  be  reached;  and  competent  teachers  will  reacli 
them  l)e8t  by  their  own  methods. 

I  desire  to  acknowledge  in  general  my  indebtedness  to 
earlier  works  in  this  field,  jiarticularly  to  Professor  Good- 
rich's British  Eloquence,  and  to  K  J.  Payne's  Jiurkr . 
Select  Works.  But  wherever  I  have  availed  myself  ol 
more  than  mere  suggestion  or  clew,  I  have  endeavored  to 
make  due  acknowledgment  in  the  Notes. 

First  in  the  list  of  those  to  whom  I  am  personally  in- 
debted for  assistance  rendered,  I  would  name  Mr.  George 
A.  Bacon  and  Mr.  John  Allyn,  my  publishers.  From  them 
came  the  original  suggestion  of  the  work ;  and  to  their  wise 
counsel  and  untiring  interest  it  owes  far  more  than  its 
excellence  of  outward  form.  To  Prof.  Charles  Mills  Ga  \ 
ley,  my  colleague  in  the  English  Department,  I  am  in 
debted  for  valuable  suggestion  in  selecting  the  speeches, 
and  for  criticism  of  portions  of  my  manuscript  Notes. 
In  this  last  acknowledgment  must  be  included  also  Proi. 
Carl  C.  Plehn  and  Prof.  William  Carey  Jones,  who  have 
generously  given  me  the  benefit  of  their  criticism  on  a 
number  of  historical  and  political  points  encountered  in  my 
study.  Nor  must  I  forget  the  kind  service  rendered  me  by 
my  nephew,  Mr.  Evander  B.  McGilvary,  in  reading  through- 
out the  proof  of  the  Notes. 

C.  B.   BRADLEY. 

UNIVKRSITT  of    CAIilFORXlA, 

November  30,  1891. 


CONTENTS. 


SFEECKBS:—  PAob 

BuRKR  :           On  ConcUiatiun  xoUh  the  Colouiea  1 
Chatham  :      On  American  Affairs     .... 

BuRKR  :           lie  fore  the  Electors  at  Bristol  HU 

Erskink  :       In  the  Stockdale  Case Ill 

WKB.STKR  :      TTie  Reply  to  Ilayne i  ^.'' 

Macaulay  :    On  the  Reform  Hill  of  18.T2  r.j 

Calhoun  :      On  the  Slavery  Quention     .  Ill 

Seward  :        On  the  Irrepressible  Conflict  -"« 

Lincoln:        Tlie  Gettysburg  Address     .    .  -11 

NOTES:- 

The  English  Constitution  and  Oovemment  .    .  ^15 

Edmund  Burke '•^27 

Speech  on  Conciliation  with  America  .  ^9 

Lord  Chatham HI 

Speech  on  American  Affairs    .  H3 

Edmund  Burke '^'^ 

Speech  before  the  Electors  at  Bristol    .  ••• 

Lord  Erskinb -'-^ 

Speech  in  the  StockdcUe  Case  .     . 

Daniel  Webster '' 

The  Reply  to  Ilayne '' 

Lord  Macaulat '^' 

Speech  on  the  Reform  Bill  of  1832  '  ~ 

John  C.  Calhoun '^- 

Speech  on  the  Slavery  Question  .  =74 

William  H.  Seward ^^ 

Speech  on  the  Irrepressible  Conflict  ^ 
Abraham  Lincoln  ...                                                          ..    :»79 


EDMUND    BURKE. 


ON   MOVING   HIS 

RESOLUTIONS    FOR  CONCILIATION  WITH   THE  COLONIES. 

HOUSE   OP   COMMONS,    MARCH    22,  1775. 


I  HOPE,  Sir,  that  notwithstanding  the  austerity  of  the 
Chair,  your  good  nature  will  incline  you  to  some  degree 
of  indulgence  towards  human  frailty.  You  will  not  think 
it  unnatural  that  those  who  have  an  object  depending, 
which  strongly  engages  their  hopes  and  fears,  should  be  6 
somewhat  inclined  to  superstition.  As  I  came  into  the 
House  full  of  anxiety  about  the  event  of  my  motion,  I 
found,  to  my  infinite  surprise,  that  the  grand  penal  bill, 
by  wliich  we  had  passed  sentence  on  the  trade  and  suste- 
nance of  America,  is  to  be  returned  to  us  from  the  other  10 
House.  I  do  confess  I  could  not  help  looking  on  this 
event  as  a  fortunate  omen.  I  look  upon  it  as  a  sort  of 
providential  favor,  by  which  we  are  put  once  more  in 
possession  of  our  deliberative  capacity  upon  a  business 
so  very  questionable  in  its  nature,  so  very  uncertain  in  u 
its  issue.  Hy  the  return  of  this  bill,  which  seemed  to 
have  taken  its  flight  forever,  we  are  at  this  very  instant 
nearly  as  free  to  choose  a  plan  for  our  American  Gov- 
ernment as  we  were  on  the  first  day  of  the  session.  If, 
Sir,  we  incline  to  the  side  of  conciliation,  we  are  not  so 
at  all  embarrassed  (unless  we  please  to  make  ourselves 
so)  by  any  incongruous  mixture  of  coercion  and  restraint. 

1 


2  Burke. 

We  are  therefore  called  upon,  as  it  were  by  a  superior 
warning  voice,  again  to  attend  to  America;  to  attend  t(. 
the  whole  of  it  together;  and  to  review  the  subject  with 
an  unusual  degree  of  care  and  calmness. 
5  Surely  it  is  an  awful  subject,  or  there  is  none  so  on 
this  side  of  the  grave.  When  I  first  had  the  honor  of 
a  Beat  in  this  House,  the  affairs  of  that  continent  pressoi  i 
themselves  upon  us  as  the  most  imix)rtant  and  most 
delicate  object  of  Parliamentary  attention.     My  little 

10  share  in  this  great  deliberation  oppressed  me.  I  fouml 
myself  a  partaker  in  a  very  high  trust;  and,  having  no 
sort  of  reason  to  rely  on  the  strength  of  my  natural  abil- 
ities for  the  proper  execution  of  that  trust,  I  was  oblige! 
to  take  more  than  common  pains  to  instruct  myself  in 

15  everything  which  relates  to  our  Colonies.  I  was  not  less 
under  the  necessity  of  forming  some  fixed  ideas  concern- 
ing the  general  policy  of  the  British  Empire.  Something 
of  this  sort  seemed  to  be  indispensable,  in  order,  amidst 
so  vast  a  fluctuation  of  passions  and  opinions,  to  con - 

20  centre  my  thoughts,  to  ballast  my  conduct,  to  preserve 
me  from  being  blown  about  by  every  wind  of  fashion- 
able doctrine.  I  really  did  not  think  it  safe  or  manly 
to  have  fresh  principles  to  seek  upon  every  fresh  mail 
which  should  arrive  from  America. 

26  At  that  period  I  had  the  fortune  to  find  myself  in  per- 
fect concurrence  with  a  large  majority  in  this  House. 
Bowing  under  that  high  authority,  and  penetrated  with 
the  sharpness  and  strength  of  that  early  impression,  I 
have  continued  ever  since,  without  the  least  deviation, 

30  in  my  original  sentiments.  Whether  this  be  owing  to  an 
obstinate  perseverance  in  error,  or  to  a  religious  adher- 
ence to  what  appears  to  me  truth  and  reason,  it  is  in 
your  equity  tb  judge. 

Sir,  Parliament  having  an  enlarged  view  of  object 

35  made,  during  this  interval,  more  frequent  changes  in  their 


Oanciliation  with  the  Colonies.  d 

sentiments  and  their  conduct  than  could  be  justified  in 
a  particular  person  upon  the  contracted  scale  of  private 
information.  But  though  I  do  not  hazard  anything  ap- 
proaching to  a  censure  on  the  motives  of  former  Parliar 
ments  to  all  those  alterations,  one  fact  is  undoubted  —  5 
that  under  them  \he  state  of  America  has  been  kept  in 
continual  agitation.  Ever3rthing  administered  as  remedy 
to  the  public  complaint,  if  it  did  not  produce,  was  at  least 
followed  by,  an  heightening  of  the  distemper ;  until,  by 
a  variety  of  experiments,  that  important  country  has  been  lo 
brought  into  her  present  situation  —  a  situation  which  I 
will  not  miscall,  which  I  dare  not  name,  which  I  scarcely 
know  how  to  comprehend  in  the  terms  of  any  description. 
In  this  posture,  Sir,  things  stood  at  the  beginning  of 
the  session.  About  that  time,  a  worthy  member  of  great  15 
Parliamentary  experience,  who,  in  the  year  1766,  filled 
tlie  chair  of  the  American  committee  with  much  ability, 
took  me  aside ;  and,  lamenting  the  present  aspect  of  our 
politics,  told  me  things  were  come  to  such  a  pass  that  our 
former  methods  of  proceeding  in  the  House  would  Ik*  no  'JO 
longer  tolerated :  that  the  public  tribunal  (never  too  in- 
dulgent to  a  long  and  unsuccessful  opposition)  would  now 
scnitinize  our  conduct  with  unusual  severity :  that  the 
very  vicissitudes  and  shiftings  of  Ministerial  measures, 
instead  of  convicting  their  authors  of  inconstancy  and  » 
want  of  system,  would  be  taken  <casion  of  cliar- 

ging  us  with  a  predetermined  (lis('oiir<Mit,  which  nothing 
could  satisfy ;  whilst  we  accused  every  measure  of  vigor 
as  cruel,  and  every  proposal  of  lenity  as  weak  and  irreso- 
lute.  The  public,  he  said,  would  not  have  patience  to  see  no 
us  play  the  game  out  with  our  adversaries ;  we  must  pro- 
duce our  hand.  It  would  be  expecteil  that  those  who  for 
many  years  had  l)een  active  in  such  affairs  should  show 
t  hat  they  had  formed  some  clear  and  decided  ideii  of  the 
principles  of  Colony  government;  and  were  capable  of  35 


4  Burke. 

drawing  out  something  like  a  platform  of  the  ground 
which  might  be  laid  for  future  and  permanent  tran- 
quillity. 
I  felt  the  truth  of  what  my  honorable  friend  repre- 
5  sented ;  but  I  felt  my  situation  too.  His  application 
might  have  been  made  with  far  greater*  propriety  to  many 
other  gentlemen.  No  man  was  indeed  ever  better  dis- 
posed, or  worse  qualified,  for  such  an  undertaking  than 
myself.     Though  I  gave  so  far  in  to  his  opinion  that  I 

10  immediately  threw  my  thoughts  intx)  a  sort  of  Parlia- 
mentary form,  I  was  by  no  means  equally  ready  to  pro- 
duce them.  It  generally  argues  some  degree  of  natural 
impotence  of  mind,  or  some  want  of  knowledge  of  the 
world,  to  hazard  plans  of  government  except  from  a  seat 

15  of  authority.  Propositions  are  made,  not  only  ineffectu- 
ally, but  somewhat  disreputably,  when  the  minds  of  men 
are  not  properly  disposed  for  their  reception ;  and,  for  my 
part,  I  am  not  ambitious  of  ridicule  —  not  absolutely  a 
candidate  for  disgrace. 

20  Besides,  Sir,  to  speak  the  plain  truth,  I  have  in  general 
no  very  exalted  opinion  of  the  virtue  of  paper  govern- 
ment J  nor  of  any  politics  in  which  the  plan  is  to  be  wholly 
separated  from  the  execution.  But  when  I  saw  that  anger 
and  violence  prevailed  every  day  more  and  more,  and  that 

25  things  were  hastening  towards  an  incurable  alienation 
of.  our  Colonies,  I  confess  my  caution  gave  way.  I  felt 
this  as  one  of  those  few  moments  in  which  decorum 
yields  to  a  higher  duty.  Public  calamity  is  a  might} 
leveller ;   and  there  are   occasions  when  any,  even   the 

30  slightest,  chance  of  doing  good  must  be  laid  hold  on, 
even  by  the  most  inconsiderable  person. 

To  restore  order  and  repose  to  an  empire  so  great  and 
so  distracted  as  ours,  is,  merely  in  the  attempt,  an  under- 
taking that  would  ennoble  the  flights  of  the  highest 

35  genius,  and  obtain  pardon  for  the  efforts  of  the  mean- 


Conciliation  with  the  Colonies,  6 

est  understanding.  Struggling  a  good  while  with  these 
thoughts,  by  degrees  I  felt  myself  more  firm.  I  derived, 
at  length,  some  confidence  from  what  in  other  circum- 
stances usually  produces  timidity.  I  grew  less  anxious, 
even  from  the  idea  of  my  own  insignificance.  For,  judg-  5 
ing  of  what  you  are  by  what  you  ought  to  be,  I  persuaded 
myself  that  you  would  not  reject  a  reasonable  proposition 
because  it  had  nothing  but  its  reason  to  recommend  it. 
On  the  other  hand,  being  totally  destitute  of  all  shadow 
of  influence,  natural  or  adventitious,  I  was  very  sure  lo 
that,  if  my  proposition  were  futile  or  dangerous  —  if  it 
were  weakly  conceived,  or  improperly  timed  — there  was 
nothing  exterior  to  it  of  power  to  awe,  dazzle,  or  delude 
you.  You  will  see  it  just  as  it  is  j  and  you  will  treat  it 
just  as  it  deserves.  15 

The  proposition  is  peace.  Not  peace  through  the  me- 
dium of  war ;  not  peace  to  be  hunted  through  the  laby- 
rinth of  intricate  and  endless  negotiations  ;  not  peace  to 
arise  out  of  universal  discord  fomented,  from  principle, 
in  all  parts  of  the  Empire ;  not  peace  to  depend  on  the  20 
juridical  determination  of  perplexing  questions,  or  the 
precise  marking  the  shadowy  boundaries  of  a  complex 
government  It  is  simple  peace;  sought  in  its  natural 
course,  and  in  its  ordinary  haunts.  It  is  peaxie  sought  in 
the  spirit  of  peace,  and  laid  in  principles  purely  pacific.  25 
I  propose,  by  removing  tlie  ground  of  the  difference,  and 
by  restoring  the  former  unsuspecting  confidence  of  the 
Colonies  in  the  Mother  Country,  to  give  permanent  satis- 
faction to  your  people  ;  and  (far  from  a  sclieme  of  niling 
by  discord)  to  reconcile  them  to  each  other  in  the  same  ao 
act  and  by  the  bond  of  tlie  very  same  interest  which 
reconciles  them  to  British  government.  ^ 

My  idea  is  nothing  more.  Refined  policy  ever  has  been 
the  parent  of  confusion ;  and  ever  will  be  so,  as  long  as 
tl...  world  endures.    Plain  good  int^'iiiirm,  wlii.li  i><  as35 


6  Burke, 

easily  discovered  at  the  first  view  as  fraud  is  surely  de- 
tected at  last,  is,  let  me  say,  of  no  mean  force  in  the 
government  of  mankind.  Genuine  simplicity  of  heart  is 
an  healing  and  cementing  principle.     My  plan,  therefore, 

6  being  formed  upon  the  most  simple  grounds  imaginable, 
may  disappoint  some  people  when  they  hear  it.  It  has 
notliing  to  recommend  it  to  the  pruriency  of  curious  ears. 
There  is  nothing  at  all  new  and  captivating  in  it.  It  has 
nothing  of  the  splendor  of  the  project  which  has  been 

10  lately  laid  upon  your  table  by  the  noble  lord  in  tlie  blue 
ribbon.  It  does  not  propose  to  fill  your  lobby  witli 
squabbling  Colony  agents,  who  will  require  the  interpo- 
sition of  your  mace,  at  every  instant,  to  keep  the  peace 
amongst  them.     It  does  not  institute  a  magnificent  auc- 

15  tion  of  finance,  where  captivated  provinces  come  to  gener- 
al ransom  by  bidding  against  each  other,  until  you  knock 
down  the  hammer,  and  determine  a  proportion  of  pay- 
ments beyond  all  the  powers  of  algebra  to  equalize  and 
settle. 

20  The  plan  which  I  shall  presume  to  suggest  derives, 
however,  one  great  advantage  from  the  proposition  and 
registry  of  that  noble  lord's  project.  The  idea  of  con- 
ciliation is  admissible.  First,  the  House,  in  accepting 
the  resolution  moved  by  the  noble  lord,  has  admitted, 

25  notwithstanding  the  menacing  front  of  our  address,  not- 
withstanding our  heavy  bills  of  pains  and  penalties  — 
that  we  do  not  think  ourselves  precluded  from  all  ideas 
of  free  grace  and  bounty. 

The  House  has  gone  farther ;  it  has  declared  concilia- 

30  tion  admissible,  previous  to  any  submission  on  the  ])art 
of  America.  It  has  even  shot  a  good  deal  beyond  that 
mark,  and  has  admitted  that  the  complaints  of  our  for- 
mer mode  of  exerting  the  right  of  taxation  were  not 
wholly  unfounded.     That  right  thus  exerted  is  allowed 

35  to  have  something  reprehensible  in  it,  something  unwise, 


c..,,.;!;. ,::,,,>   n-itl,  the  Colonies,  7 

or  s<">methiiig  grn-voiis;  since,  m  the  midst  of  our  heat 
and  resentment,  we,  of  ourselves,  have  proposed  a  capital 
alteration;  and  in  order  to  get  rid  of  what  seemed  so 
very  exceptionable,  have  instituted  a  mode  that  is  alto- 
gether new;  one  that  is,  indeed,  wholly  alien  from  all  6 
the  ancient  methods  and  forms  of  Parliament. 

The  principle  of  this  proceeding  is  large  enough  for 
my  purpose.  The  means  proposed  by  the  noble  lord 
for  carrying  his  ideas  into  execution,  I  think,  indeed,  are 
very  indifferently  suited  to  the  end;  and  this  I  shall  10 
•Muleavor  to  show  you  before  I  sit  down.  But,  for  the 
present,  I  take  my  ground  on  the  admitted  principle.  I 
mean  to  give  peace.  Peace  implies  reconciliation;  and 
where  there  has  been  a  material  dispute,  reconciliation 
does  in  a  manner  always  imply  concession  on  the  one  15 
|)art  or  on  the  other.  In  this  state  of  things  I  make  no 
difficulty  in  affirming  that  the  proposal  ought  to  originate, 
irom  us.  Great  and  acknowledged  force  is  not  impaired, 
either  in  effect  or  in  opinion,  by  an  unwillingness  to 
exert  itself.  The  superior  power  may  offer  peace  with  20 
iionor  and  with  safety.  Such  an  offer  from  such  a  power 
will  be  attributed  to  magnanimity.  But  the  concessions 
of  the  weak  are  the  concessions  of  fear.  When  such  a 
<  )ne  is  disarmed,  he  is  wholly  at  the  mercy  of  his  supe- 
rior ;  and  he  loses  forever  that  time  and  those  chances,  25 
which,  as  they  happen  to  all  men,  are  the  strength  and 
resources  of  all  inferior  power. 

The  capital  leading  questions  on  which  you  must  this 
day  decide  are  these  two:  First,  whether  you  ought  to 
'  >ncede ;  and  secondly,  what  your  concession  ought  to  be.  30 
»u  the  first  of  these  questions  we  have  gained,  as  I  have 
just  taken  the  liberty  of  observing  to  you,  some  ground. 
Hut  I  am  sensible  that  a  good  deal  more  is  still  to  be 
<loue.  Indeed,  Sir,  to  enable  us  to  determine  both  on 
the  one  and  the  other  of  these  great  questions  with  a3S 


8  Burke. 

firm  and  precise  judgment,  I  think  it  may  be  necessary 
to  consider  distinctly  the  true  nature  and  the  peculiar 
circumstances  of  the  object  which  we  have  before  us; 
because  after  all  our  struggle,  whether  we  will  or  not, 

5  we  must  govern  America  according  to  that  nature  and  to 
those  circumstances,  and  not  according  to  our  own  imagi- 
nations, nor  according  to  abstract  ideas  of  right  —  by  no 
means  according  to  mere  general  theories  of  government, 
the  resort  to  which  appears  to  me,  in  our  present  situa- 

10  tion,  no  better  than  arrant  trifling.  I  shall  therefore 
endeavor,  with  your  leave,  to  lay  before  you  some  of  the 
most  material  of  these  circumstances  in  as  full  and  as 
clear  a  manner  as  I  am  able  to  state  them. 

The  first  thing  that  we  have  to  consider  with  regard 

15  to  the  nature  of  the  object  is — the  number  of  people  in 
the  Colonies.  I  have  taken  for  some  years  a  gOod  deal 
of  pains  on  that  point.  I  can  by  no  calculation  justify 
myself  in  placing  the  number  below  two  millions  of  in- 
habitants of  our  own  European  blood  and  color,  besides 

20  at  least  five  hundred  thousand  others,  who  form  no  incon- 
siderable part  of  the  strength  and  opulence  of  the  whole. 
This,  Sir,  is,  I  believe,  about  the  true  number.  There  is 
no  occasion  to  exaggerate  where  plain  truth  is  of  so  much 
weight  and  importance.     But  whether  I  put  the  present 

25  numbers  too  high  or  too  low  is  a  matter  of  little  moment. 
Such  is  the  strength  with  which  population  shoots  in 
that  part  of  the  world,  that,  state  the  numbers  as  high 
as  we  will,  whilst  the  dispute  continues,  the  exaggeration 
ends.     ^Vhilst  we  are  discussing  any  given  magnitude, 

30  they  are  grown  to  it.  Whilst  we  spend  our  time  in 
deliberating  on  the  mode  of  governing  two  millions,  we 
shall  find  we  have  millions  more  to  manage.  Your  chil- 
dren do  not  grow  faster  from  infancy  to  manhood  than 
they   spread   from   families   to  communities,  and   from 

35  villages  to  nations. 


CoHclVuition  with  the  Colonies,  9 

I  put  tlli^  iMiii>i«ieraLiuii  ol  the  present  and  the  grow- 
ing numbers  in  the  front  of  our  deliberation,  because, 
Sir,  this  consideration  will  make  it  evident  to  a  blunter 
discernment  than  yours,  that  no  partial,  narrow,  con- 
t  racted,  pinched,  occasional  system  will  be  at  all  suitable  5 
to  such  an  object.  It  will  show  you  that  it  is  not  to  be 
considered  as  one  of  those  minima  which  are  out  of  the 
eye  and  consideration  of  the  law;  not  a  paltry  excres- 
cence of  the  stiite ;  not  a  mean  dependant,  who  may  be 
neglected  with  little  damage  and  provoked  with  little  lo 
(lunger.  It  "will  prove  that  some  degree  of  care  and 
caution  is  required  in  the  handling  such  an  object ;  it 
will  show  that  you  ought  not,  in  reason,  to  trifle  with  so 
large  a  mass,  of  the  interests  and  feelings  of  the  human 
race.  You  could  at  no  time  do  so  without  guilt ;  and  be  16 
assured  you  will  not  be  able  to  do  it  long  with  impunity. 
But  the  population  of  this  country,  the  great  and 
:^^ rowing  population,  though  a  very  important  considera- 
tion, will  lose  much  of  its  weight  if  not  combined  with 
( >ther  circumstances.  The  commerce  of  your  Colonies  20 
is  out  of  all  proportion  beyond  the  numbers  of  the 
jieople.  This  ground  of  their  commerce  indeed  has  been 
t  rod  some  days  ago,  and  with  great  ability,  by  a  distin- 
iiished  person  at  your  bar.  This  gentleman,  after 
hirty-five  years  —  it  is  so  long  since  he  first  appeared  25. 
at  the  same  place  to  plead  for  the  commerce  of  Great 
1  Britain  —  has  come  again  before  you  to  plead  the  same 
cause,  without  any  other  effect  of  time,  than  that  to  the 
tire  of  imagination  and  extent  of  erudition  which  even 
then  marked  him  as  one  of  the  first  literary  characters  30 
of  his  age,  he  has  added  a  consummate  knowledge  in  the 
ommercial  interest  of  his  country,  formed  by  a  long 
course  of  enlightened  and  discriminating  experience.   { 

Sir,  I  should  be  inexcusable  in  coming  after  such  a 
l)er8on  with  any  detail,  if  a  great  part  of  the  members  36 


10  Burke, 

who  now  fill  the  House  had  not  the  misfortune  to  be 
absent  wlien  he  appeared  at  your  bar.  Besides,  Sir,  I 
propose  to  take  the  matter  at  i)eriods  of  time  somewhat 
different  from  his.     There  is,  if  I  mistake  not,  a  point  of 

5  view  from  whence,  if  you  will  look  at  the  subject,  it  is 
impossible  that  it  should  not  make  an  impression  upon 
you. 

I  have  in  my  hand  two  accounts ;  one  a  comparative 
state  of  the  export  trade  of  England  to  its  Colonies,  as 

10  it  stood  in  the  year  1704,  and  as  it  stood  in  the  year 
1772;  the  other  a  state  of  the  export  trade  of  this 
country  to  its  Colonies  alone,  as  it  stood  in  1772,  com- 
pared with  the  whole  trade  of  England  to  all  i>arts  of 
the   world   (the   Colonies   included)   in   the   year   1704. 

15  They  are  from  good  vouchers ;  the  latter  pcriml  from  the 
accounts  on  your  table,  the  earlier  from  an  original 
manuscript  of  Davenant,  who  first  established  the  In- 
spector-Greneral's  office,  which  has  been  ever  since  his 
time  so  abundant  a  source  of  Parliamentary  information. 

20  The  export  trade  to  the  Colonies  consists  of  three 
great  branches:  the  African  —  which,  terminating  almost 
wholly  in  the  Colonies,  must  be  put  to  the  account  of 
their  commerce, — the  West  Indian,  and  the  North  Ameri- 
can.    All  these  are  so  interwoven  that  the  attempt  to 

25  separate  them  would  tear  to  pieces  the  contexture  of  the 
whole;  and,  if  not  entirely  destroy,  would  very  much 
depreciate  the  value  of  all  the  parts.  I  therefore  con- 
sider these  three  denominations  to  be,  what  in  effect  they 
are,  one  trade. 

30  The  trade  to  the  Colonies,  taken  on  the  export  side,  at 
the  beginning  of  this  century,  that  is,  in  the  year  1704, 
stood  thus :  — 

Exports  to  North  America  and  the  West  Indies  .     £483,265 
To  Africa    ....,., 86,665 

35  £569,930 


Conciliatmi  with  the  Colonies.  1 1 

In  the  year  1772,  which  I  take  as  a  middle  year  be- 
tween the  highest  and  lowest  of  those  lately  laid  on 
\  our  table,  the  account  was  as  follows :  — 

To  North  America  and  the  West  Indies  .     .     .  £4,791,734 

To  Africa 866,398      6 

To  which,  if  you  add   the  export  trade  from 
Scotland,  which  had  in  1704  no  existence  .     .  364,000 

£6,022,132 

From  five  hundred  and  odd  thousand,  it  has  grown  to 
>ix  millions.  It  has  increased  no  less  than  twelve-fold,  lo 
riiis  is  the  state  of  the  Colony  tratle  as  compared  with 
itself  at  these  two  periods  within  this  century;  —  and 
this  is  matter  for  meditation.  But  this  is  not  all.  Ex- 
amine my  second  account.  See  how  the  export  trade  to 
tlie  Colonies  alone  in  1772  stood  in  the  other  point  of  is 
view  ;  that  is,  as  compared  to  the  whole  trade  of  England 
in  1701  :  — 

The  whole  ex|>ort  trade  of  England,  including 

that  to  the  Colonies,  in  1704 £6,509,000 

Export  to  the  Colonies  alone,  in  1772  ....       6,024,000      20 

Difference,       £485,000 

The  trade  with  America  alone  is  now  within  less  than 
.4^5(K),0(X)  of  being  ecpial  to  what  this  great  commercial 
nation,  England,  carried  on  at  the  beginning  of  this  cen- 
tury with  the  whole  world !  If  I  had  taken  the  largest  26 
Nt'ar  of  those  on  your  tiible,  it  would  rather  have  ex- 
ceeded. But,  it  will  be  said,  is  not  this  American  trade 
an  unnatural  protuberance,  that  has  drawn  the  juices 
t  rom  the  rest  of  the  body  ?  The  reverse.  It  is  the 
very  food  that  has  nourished  every  other  part  into  its  30 
])resent  magnitude.  Our  genenil  trade  has  been  greatly 
ugmented,  and  augmented  more  or  less  in  almost  every 
part  tf>  wliirli  it  cvct  extended;  but  with  tliis  material 


12  Burke. 

difference,  that  of  the  six  millions  which  in  the  begin- 
ning of  the  century  constituted  the  whole  mass  of  our 
export  commerce,  the  Colony  trade  was  but  one-twelfth 
part ;  it  is  now  (as  a  part  of  sixteen  millions)  consider- 

5  ably  more  than  a  third  of  the  whole.  This  is  the  rela- 
tive proportion  of  the  importance  of  the  Colonies  at 
these  two  periods;  and  all  reasoning  concerning  our 
mode  of  treating  them  must  have  this  proportion  as  its 
basis  ;  or  it  is  a  reasoning  weak,  rotten,  and  sophistical. 

10  Mr.  Speaker,  I  cannot  prevail  on  myself  to  hurry  over 
this  great  consideration.  It  is  good  for  us  to  he  here. 
We  stand  where  we  have  an  immense  view  of  what  is, 
and  what  is  past.  Clouds,  indeed,  and  darkness,  rest 
upon  the   future.     Let  us,  however,  before  we  descend 

15  from  this  noble  eminence,  reflect  that  this  growth  of  our 
national  prosperity  has  happened  within  the  short  period 
of  the  life  of  man.  It  has  happened  within  sixty-eiglit 
years.  There  are  those  alive  whose  memory  might 
touch  the   two    extremities.      For    instance,  my  Lord 

20  Bathurst  might  remember  all  the  stages  of  the  progress. 
He  was  in  1704  of  an  age  at  least  to  be  made  to  compre- 
hend such  things.  He  was  then  old  enough  actaparentum 
jajn  legere,  et  qu(B  sit  potuit  cognoscere  virtits.  Suppose, 
Sir,  that  the  angel  of  this  auspicious  youth,  foreseeing 

25  the  many  virtues  which  made  him  one  of  the  most 
amiable,  as  he  is  one  of  the  most  fortunate,  men  of  his 
age,  had  opened  to  him  in  vision  that  when  in  the  fourth 
generation  the  third  Prince  of  the  House  of  Brunswick 
had  sat  twelve  years  on  the  throne  of  that  nation  which, 

30  by  the  happy  issue  of  moderate  and  healing  counsels, 
was  to  be  made  Great  Britain,  he  should  see  his. son, 
Lord  Chancellor  of  England,  turn  back  the  current  of 
hereditary  dignity  to  its  fountain,  and  raise  him  to  a 
higher  rank  of  peerage,  whilst  he  enriched  the  family 

35  with  a  new  one  —  if,  amidst  these  bright  and   happy 


Conciliation   with  the  Colonies.  13 

cenes  of  domestic  honor  and  prosi)erity,  that  angel 
-hould  have  drawn  up  the  curtain,  and  unfolded  the 
rising  glories  of  his  country,  and,  whilst  he  was  gazing 
with  admiration  on  the  then  commercial  grandeur  of 
Kngland,  the  genius  should    point  out  to  him  a  little  5 

peck,  scarcely  visible  in  the  mass  of  the  national  inter- 
est, a  small  seminal  principle,  rather  than  a  formed  body, 
and  should  tell  him:  "Young  man,  there  is  America  — 
which  at  this  day  serves  for  little  more  than  to  amuse 
vou  with  stories  of  savage  men,  and  uncouth  manners ;  lo 

I't  shall,  before  you  taste  of  death,  show  itself  equal 
to  the  whole  of  that  commerce  which  now  attracts  the 
rnvy  of  the  world.  Whatever  England  has  been  grow- 
ing to  by  a  progressive  increase  of  improvement,  brought 
111  by  varieties  of  people,  by  succession  of  civilizing  con  15 
•  [uests  and  civilizing  settlements  in  a  series  of  seventeen 
liundred  years,  you  shall  see  as  much  added  to  her  by 
America  in  the  course  of  a  single  life!  "  If  this  state  of 
his  country  had  been  foretold  to  him,  would  it  not  require 

11  the  sanguine  credulity  of  youth,  and  all  the  fervid  20 

low  of  enthusiasm,  to  make  him  believe  it?  Fortunate 
man,  he  hiis  lived  to  see  it !  Fortunate,  indeed,  if  he 
lives  to  see  nothing  that  shall  vary  the  prospect,  and 
cloud  the  setting  of  his  day  ! 

Excuse  me.  Sir,  if  turning  from  such  thoughts  I  re-  25 

lime  this  comparative  view  once  more.  You  have  seen 
it  on  a  large  scale;  look  at  it  on  a  small  one.  I  will 
|)oint  out  to  your  attention  a  particular  instance  of  it  in 
tiu»  single  province  of  Pennsylvania.  In  the  year  1704 
tliat  province  called  for  .iJ  11,459  in  value  of  your  com- 30 
modities,  native  and  foreign.  This  was  the  whole.  What 
•lid  it  demand  in  1772?  Why,  nearly  fifty  times  as 
much ;  for  in  that  year  the  export  to  Pennsylvania  was 
£507,909,  nearly  equal  to  the  export  to  all  the  Colonies 

>gether  in  the  first  period.  35 


14  Burke. 

I  choose,  Sir,  to  enter  into  these  minute  and  particular 
details,  because  generalities,  which  in  all  other  cases  are 
apt  to  heighten  and  raise  the  subject,  have  here  a  ten- 
dency to  sink  it.  When  we  speak  of  the  commerce 
5  with  our  Colonies,  fiction  lags  after  truth,  invention  is 
unfruitful,  and  imagination  cold  and  barren. 

So  far,  Sir,  as  to  the  im[)ortance  of  the  object,  in  viuw 
of  its  commerce,  as  concerned  in  the  exports  from  Eng- 
land.    If  1  were  to  detail  the  imports,  I  could  show  how 

10  many  enjoyments  they  procure  which  deceive  the  bur- 
then of  life ;  how  many  materials  which  invigorate  the 
springs  of  national  industry,  and  extend  and  animate 
every  part  of  our  foreign  and  domestic  commerce.  This 
would  be  a  curious  subject  indeed ;  but  I  must  prescribe 

15  bounds  to  myself  in  a  matter  so  vast  and  various. 

I  pass,  therefore,  to  the  Colonies  in  another  point  of 
view,  their  agriculture.  This  they  have  prosecuted  with 
such  a  spirit,  that,  besides  feeding  plentifully  their  own 
growing  multitude,  their  annual  export  of  grain,  compre- 

20  bending  rice,  has  some  years  ago  exceeded  a  million  in 
value.  Of  their  last  harvest  I  am  persuaded  they  will 
export  much  more.  At  the  beginning  of  the  century 
some  of  these  Colonies  imported  corn  from  the  Mother 
Country.     For  some  time  past  the  Old  World  has  been 

25  fed  from  the  New.  The  scarcity  which  you  have  felt 
would  have  been  a  desolating  famine,  if  this  child  of 
your  old  age,  with  a  true  filial  piety,  with  a  Roman 
charity,  had  not  put  the  full  breast  of  its  youthful 
exuberance  to  the  mouth  of  its  exhausted  parent. 

30  As  to  the  wealth  which  the  Colonies  have  drawn  from 
the  sea  by  their  fisheries,  you  had  all  that  matter  fully 
opened  at  your  bar.  You  surely  thought  those  acquisi- 
tions of  value,  for  they  seemed  even  to  excite  your  envy ; 
and  yet  the  spirit  by  which  that  enterprising  employment 

35  has  been  exercised  ought  rather,  in  my  opinion,  to  have 


Conciliation  u'ifit   t/ic  Colonies.  15 

raised  your  esteem  and  atlmiratioii.     And  pray,  Sir,  wliat 
in  tlie  world  is  equal  to  it  ?     Pass  by  the  other  parts,  and 
look  at  the  manner  in  which  the  people  of  New  England 
have  of  late  carried  on  the  whale  fishery.     Whilst  we  fol- 
low them   among  the  tumbling   mountains  of  ice,  and  6 
IxOiold  them  penetrating  into  the  deepest  frozen  recesses 
of  Hudson's  Hay  and  Davis's  Straits,  whilst  we  are  look- 
ing for  them  beneath  the  arctic  circle,  we  hear  that  they 
liave  pierced  into  the  opposite  region  of  polar  cold,  that 
t  hey  are  at  the  antipodes,  and  engaged  under  the  frozen  lO 
Seri)ent  of  the  south.     Falkland  Island,  which  seemed 
too   remote  and   romantic  an  object  for  the   grasp  of 
national   ambition,  is   but  a  stage   and  resting-place  in 
the  progress  of   their  victorious  industry.     Nor  is  the 
equinoctial  heat  more  discouraging  to  them  than  the  ac- 16 
cumulated  winter  of  both   the  poles.     We   know  that 
whilst  some  of  them  draw  the  line  and  strike  the  harpoon 
on  the  coast  of  Africa,  others  run  the  longitude  and  pur- 
sue their  gigantic  game  along  the  coast  of  Brazil.     No 
sea  but  what  is  vexed  by  their  fisheries  ;  no  climate  that  20 
is  not  witness  to  their  toils.     Neither  the  perseverance 
of  Holland,  nor  the  activity  of  France,  nor  the  dexterous 
and  firm  sagacity  of  English  enterprise  ever  carried  this 
most  perilous  mode  of  hardy  industry  to  the  extent  to 
which  it  has  been  pushed  by  this  recent  people ;  a  peo-  25 
pie  who  are  still,  as  it  were,  but  in  the  gristle,  and  not 
yet  hardened  into  the  bone  of  manhood.     When  I  con- 
t«'mplate  these  things;  when  I  know  that  the  Colonies 
ill  general  owe  little  or  nothing  to  any  care  of  ours,  and 
liat  they  are  not  squeezed  into  this  happy  form  by  the  30 
onstraints  of  watchful  and  suspicious  government,  but 
that,  through  a  wise  and  salutary  neglect,  a  generous 
nature  has  l)een  suffered  to  take  her  own  way  to  perfec- 
tion ;  when  I  reflect  upon  these  effects,  when  I  see  how 
profitable  they  have  been  to  us,  I  feel  all  the  pride  of  36 


16  Burke, 

power  sink,  and  all  presumption  in  the  wisdom  of  human 
contrivances  melt  and  die  away  within  me.  My  rigor 
relents.  I  pardon  something  to  the  spirit  of  liberty. 
I  am  sensible,  Sir,  that  all  which  I  have  asserted  in  my 
6  detail  is  admitted  in  the  gross ;  but  that  quite  a  differ- 
ent conclusion  is  drawn  from  it.  America,  gentlemen 
say,  is  a  noble  object.  It  is  an  object  well  worth  lighting 
for.  Certainly  it  is,  if  fighting  a  people  be  the  best  way 
of  gaining  them.     Gentlemen  in  this  respect  will  be  led 

10  to  their  choice  of  means  by  their  complexions  and  their 
habits.  Those  who  understand  the  military  art  will  of 
course  have  some  predilection  for  it.  Those  who  wield 
the  thunder  of  the  state  may  have  more  confidence  in  the 
efficacy  of  arms.     But  I  confess,  possibly  for  want  of  this 

15  knowledge,  my  opinion  is  much  more  in  favor  of  prudent 
management  than  of  force ;  considering  force  not  as  an 
odious,  but  a  feeble  instrument  for  preserving  a  people  so 
numerous,  so  active,  so  growing,  so  spirited  as  this,  in  a 
profitable  and  subordinate  connection  with  us. 

20  First,  Sir,  permit  me  to  observe  that  the  use  of  force 
alone  is  but  temporary.  It  may  subdue  for  a  moment, 
but  it  does  not  remove  the  necessity  of  subduing  again ; 
and  a  nation  is  not  governed  which  is  perpetually  to  be 
conquered. 

25  My  next  objection  is  its  uncertainty.  Terror  is  not 
always  the  effect  of  force,  and  an  armament  is  not  a  vic- 
tory. If  you  do  not  succeed,  you  are  without  resource ; 
for,  conciliation  failing,  force  remains  ;  but,  force  failing, 
no  further   hope  of   reconciliation  is   left.     Power  and 

30  authority  are  sometimes  bought  by  kindness ;  but  they 
can  never  be  begged  as  alms  by  an  impoverished  and 
defeated  violence. 

A  further  objection  to  force  is,  that  you  impair  the 
object  by  your  very  endeavors  to  preserve  it.     The  thing 

35  you  fought  for  is  not  the  thing  which  you  recover ;  but 


Co?ieiUation  with  the  Colonies,  17 

depreciated,  sunk,  was  tod,  and  cousumed  in  the  contest. 
Nothing  less  will  content  me  than  whole  America.  I  do 
not  choose  to  consume  its  strength  along  with  our  own, 
because  in  all  parts  it  is  the  British  strength  that  I  con- 
sume. I  do  not  choose  to  be  caught  by  a  foreign  enemy  6 
at  the  end  of  this  exhausting  conflict ;  and  still  less  in 
the  midst  of  it.  I  may  escape ;  but  I  can  make  no  in- 
sui-ance  against  such  an  event.  Let  me  add,  that  I  do 
not  choose  wholly  to  break  the  American  spirit ;  because 
it  is  the  spirit  that  has  made  the  country.  lo 

Lastly,  we  have  no  sort  of  experience  in  favor  of  force 
as  an  instrument  in  the  rule  of  our  Colonies.  Their 
growth  and  their  utility  has  been  owing  to  methods  alto- 
gether different.  Our  ancient  indulgence  has  been  said 
to  be  pursued  to  a  fault.  It  may  be  so.  But  we  know,  if  is 
feeling  is  evidence,  that  our  fault  was  more  tolerable  than 
our  attempt  to  mend  it;  and  our  siu  far  more  salutary 
than  our  penitence.      >^ 

These,  Sir,  are  my  reasons  for  not  entertaining  that 
high  opinion  of  untried  force  by  which  many  gentlemen,  20 
for  whose  sentiments  in  other  particulars  I  have  great* 
resi>ect,  seem  to  be  so  greatly  captivated.     But  there  is 
still  behind  a  third  consideration  concerning  this  object 
which   serves   to   determine  my  opinion  on  tlie  sort  of 
policy  which  ought  to  be  pursued  in  the  management  of  25 
America,  even  more  than  its  population  and  its  commerce 
—  I  mean  its  temper  and  character. 

In  this  character  of  the  Americans,  a  love  of  freedom 
is  the  predominating  feature  which  marks  and  distin^ 
guishes  the  whole  ;  and  as  an  ardent  is  always  a  jealous  30 
affection,  your  Colonies  become  suspicious,  restive,  and 
untractable  whenever  they  see  tlie  least  attempt  to  wrest 
from  them  by  force,  or  shuffle  from  them  by  chicane, 
what  they  think  the  only  ailvantago  worth  living  for. 
This  fierce  spirit  of  liberty  is  stronger  in  the  English  35 


18  •  Burke . 

Colonies  probably  than  in  any  other  people  of  the  earth, 
and  this  from  a  great  variety  of  powerful  causes  ;  which, 
to  understand  the  true  temper  of  their  minds  and  the 
direction  which  this  spirit  takes,  it  will  not  be  amiss  to 
5  lay  open  somewhat  more  largely. 

First,  the  i)eople  of  the  Colonies  are  descendants  of 
Englishmen.  England,  Sir,  is  a  nation  which  still,  I 
hope,  respects,  and  formerly  adored,  her  freedom.  The 
Colonists  emigrated  from  you  when  this  part  of  your 

10  character  was  most  predominant;  and  they  took  this 
bias  and  direction  the  moment  they  parted  from  your 
hands.  They  are  therefore  not  only  devoted  to  liberty, 
but  to  liberty  according  to  English  ideas,  and  on  English 
principles.     Abstract  liberty,  like  other  mere  abstrac- 

15  tions,  is  not  to  be  found.  Liberty  inheres  in  some  sen- 
sible object ;  and  every  nation  has  formed  to  itself  some 
favorite  point,  which  by  way  of  eminence  becomes  the 
criterion  of  their  happiness.  It  happened,  you  know, 
Sir,  that  the  great  contests  for  freedom  in  this  country 

20  were  from  the  earliest  times  chiefly  upon  the  question 
of  taxing.  Most  of  the  contests  in  the  ancient  common- 
wealths turned  primarily  on  the  right  of  election  of 
magistrates ;  or  on  the  balance  among  the  several  orders 
of  the  state.     The  question  of  money  was  not  with  them 

25  so  immediate.     But  in  England  it  was  otherwise.     On 

this  point  of  taxes  the  ablest  pens,  and  most  eloquent 

tongues,  have  been  exercised ;  the  greatest  spirits  have 

acted  and  suffered.     In  order  to  give  the  fullest  satisfac- 

•tion  concerning  the  importance  of  this  point,  it  was  not 

30  only  necessary  for  those  who  in  argument  defended  the 
excellence  of  the  English  Constitution  to  insist  on  this 
privilege  of  granting  money  as  a  dry  point  of  fact,  and 
to  prove  that  the  right  had  been  acknowledged  in  ancient 
parchments  and  blind  usages  to  reside  in  a  certain  body 

35  called  a  House  of  Commons.     They  went  much  farther ; 


Coucilialion  wit  It  I  In-  Colonies.  19 

they  attempted  to  prove,  and  they  succeeded,  that  in 
tlieory  it  ought  to  be  so,  from  the  particular  nature  of  a 
House  of  Commons  as  an  immediate  representative  of 
the  people,  whether  the  old  records  had  delivered  this 
oracle  or  not.  They  took  infinite  pains  to  inculcate,  as  a  5 
1  luulamental  principle,  that  in  all  monarchies  the  people 
must  in  effect  themselves,  mediately  or  immediately, 
possess  the  power  of  granting  their  own  money,  or  no 
sluulow  of  liberty  can  subsist.  The  Colonies  draw  from 
you,  as  with  their  life-blood,  these  ideas  and  principles.  10 
Their  love  of  liberty,  as  with  you,  fixed  and  attached  on 
this  specific  point  of  taxing.  Liberty  might  be  safe,  or 
might  be  endangered,  in  twenty  other  particulars,  with- 
out their  being  much  pleased  or  alarmed.  Here  they 
felt  its  pulse ;  and  as  they  found  that  beat,  they  thought  15 
themselves  sick  or  sound.  I  do  not  say  whether  they 
were  right  or  wrong  in  applying  your  geneml  arguments 
to  their  own  case.  It  is-  not  easy,  indeed,  to  make  a 
monopoly  of  theorems  and  corollaries.  Xhe  fact  is,  that 
tliey  did  thus  apply  those  general  arguments  ;  and  your  20 
mode  of  governing  them,  whether  through  lenity  or 
indolence,  thnmgh  wisdom  or  mistake,  confirmed  them 
in  the  imagination  that  they,  as  well  as  you,  had  an 
interest  in  these  common  principles. 

They  were  further  confirmed  in  this  pleasing  error  by  25 
t  lie  form  of  their  provincial  legislative  assemblies.  Their 
'governments  are  popular  in  an  high  degree;  some  are 
merely  popular;  in  all,  the  popular  representative  is 
t  he  most  weighty  ;  and  this  share  of  the  people  in  their 
ordinary  government  never  fails  to  inspire  them  with  .*» 
lofty  sentiments,  and  with  a  strong  aversion  from  what- 
ever tends  to  deprive  them  of  their  chief  imi)ortance. 

If  anything  wert»  wanting  to  this  necessary  operation 
of  the  form  of  government,  religion  would  have  given  it 
a  complete  effect     Religion,  always  a  principle  of  energy,  35 


20  Burke, 

in  this  new  people  is  no  way  worn  out  or  impaired ;  and 
their  mode  of  professing  it  is  also  one  main  cause  of  this 
free  spirit.  The  people  are  Protestants;  and  of  that 
kind  which  is  the  most  adverse  to  all  implicit  submission 

5  of  mind  and  opinion.  This  is  a  persuasion  not  only 
favorable  to  liberty,  but  built  upon  it.  I  do  not  think, 
Sir,  that  the  reason  of  this  averseness  in  the  dissenting 
churches  from  all  that  looks  like  absolute  government  is 
so  much  to  be  sought  in  their  religious  tenets,  as  in  their 

10  liistory.  Every  one  knows  that  the  Roman  Catholic 
religion  is  at  least  co-eval  with  most  of  the  governments 
where  it  prevails;  that  it  has  generally  gone  hand  in 
hand  with  them,  and  received  great  favor  and  every  kind 
of  support  from  authority.     The  Church  of  England  too 

16  was  formed  from  her  cradle  under  the  nursing  care  of 
regular  government.  But  the  dissenting  interests  have 
sprung  up  in  direct  opposition  to  all  the  ordinary  powers 
of  the  world,  and  could  justify  that  opposition  only  on 
a  strong  claim  to  natural  liberty.     Their  very  existence 

20  depended  on  the  powerful  and  unremitted  assertion  of 
that  claim.  All  Protestantism,  even  the  most  cold  and 
passive,  is  a  sort  of  dissent.  But  the  religion  most 
prevalent  in  our  Northern  Colonies  is  a  refinement  on 
the  principle  of  resistance;   it  is  the  dissidence  of  dis- 

25  sent,  and  the  protestantism  of  the  Protestant  religion. 
This  religion,  under  a  variety  of  denominations  agreeing 
in  nothing  but  in  the  communion  of  the  spirit  of  liberty, 
is  predominant  in  most  of  the  Northern  Provinces,  where 
the  Church  of  England,  notwithstanding  its  legal  rights, 

30  is  in  reality  no  more  than  a  sort  of  private  sect,  not  com- 
posing most  probably  the  tenth  of  the  people.  The 
Colonists  left  England  when  this  spirit  was  high,  and  in 
the  emigrants  was  the  highest  of  all ;  and  even  that 
stream  of  foreigners  which  has  been  constantly  flowing 

35  into  these  Colonies  has,  for  the  greatest  part,  been  com- 


Conciliafiiiii  irith  the  Colonies.  21 

posed  of  dissenters  in»iii  the  establishments  of  their 
several  countries,  who  have  brought  with  them  a  temper 
and  character  far  from  alien  to  that  of  the  people  with 
whom  they  mixed. 

Sir,  I  can  perceive  by  their  manner  that  some  gentle-  6 
men  object  to  the  latitude  of  this  description,  because 
in  the  Southern  Colonies  the  Church  of  England  forms 
a  large  body,  and  has  a  regular  establishment.     It  is  cer- 
tainly true.     There  is,  however,  a  circumstance  attending 
these  Colonies  which,  in  my  opinion,  fully  counterbal-  lO 
ances  this  difference,  and  makes  the  spirit  of  liberty  still 
more  high  and  haughty  than  in  those  to  the  northward. 
It  is  that  in  Virginia  and  the  Carolinas  they  have  a  vast 
multitude  of  slaves.     Where  this  is  the  case  in  any  part 
of  the  world,  those  who  are  free  are  by  far  the  most  15 
proud  and  jealous  of  their  freedom.     Freedom  is  to  them 
not  only  an  enjoyment,  but  a  kind  of  rank  and  privilege. 
Not  seeing  there,  that  freedom,  as  in  countries  where  it 
is  a  common  blessing  and  as  broad  and  general  as  tlie 
air,  -may  be  united  with  much  abject  toil,  with  great  20 
misery,  with  all  the  exterior  of  servitude ;  liberty  looks, 
amongst  them,  like  something  that  is  more  noble  and 
liberal.     I  do  not  mean,  Sir,  to  commend  the  superior 
morality  of  this  sentiment,  which  has  at  least  as  much 
pride  as  virtue  in  it ;  but  I  cannot  alter  the  nature  of  25 
man.     The  fact  is  so ;  and  these  people  of  the  Southern 
Colonies  are  much  more  strongly,  and  with  an  higher  and 
more  stubborn  spirit,  attached  to  liberty  than  those  to 
the  northward.     Such   were  all   the  ancient  common- 
wealths ;   such  were  our  Gothic  ancestors ;  such  in  our  30 
days  were  the  Poles;  and  such  will  be  all  masters  of 
slaves,  who  are  not  slaves  themselves.     In  such  a  people 
the  haughtiness  of  domination  combines  with  the  spirit 
of  freedom,  fortifies  it,  and  renders  it  invincible. 

Permit  me,  Sir,  to  add  another  circumstance  in  our  36 


22  Burke, 

Colonies  which  contributes  no  mean  part  towards  tlie 
growth  and  effect  of  this  untractable  spirit.  I  mean 
their  education.  In  no  country  perhaps  in  the  world  is 
the  law  so  general  a  study.  The  profession  itself  is 
6  numerous  and  powerful ;  and  in  most  provinces  it  takes 
the  lead.  The  greater  number  of  the  deputies  sent  to 
the  Congress  were  lawyers.  But  all  who  read,  and  most 
do  read,  endeavor  to  obtain  some  smattering  in  that 
science.  I  have  been  told  by  an  eminent  bookseller, 
10  that  in  no  branch  of  his  business,  after  tracts  of  jx>pular 
devotion,  were  so  many  books  as  those  on  the  law  ex- 
ported to  the  Plantations.  The  Colonists  have  now 
fallen  into  the  way  of  printing  them  for  their  own  use. 
I  hear  that  they  have  sold  nearly  as  many  of  Black- 
is  stone's  Commentaries  in  America  as  in  England.  Gen- 
eral Gage  marks  out  this  disposition  very  particularly  in 
a  letter  on  your  table.  He  states  that  all  the  people 
in  his  government  are  lawyers,  or  smatterers  in  law ;  and 
that  in  Boston  they  have  been  enabled,  by  successful 
20  chicane,  wholly  to  evade  many  parts  of  one  of  your  capi- 
tal penal  constitutions.  The  smartness  of  debate  will  say 
that  this  knowledge  ought  to  teach  them  more  clearly 
the  rights  of  legislature,  their  obligations  to  obedience, 
and  the  penalties  of  rebellion.  All  this  is  mighty  well. 
25  But  my  honorable  and  learned  friend  on  the  floor,  who 
condescends  to  mark  what  I  say  for  animadversion,  will 
disdain  that  ground.  He  has  heard,  as  well  as  I,  that 
when  great  honors  and  great  emoluments  do  not  win 
over  this  knowledge  to  the  service  of  the  state,  it  is  a 
30  formidable  adversary  to  government.  If  the  spirit  be 
not  tamed  and  broken  by  these  happy  methods,  it  is 
stubborn  and  litigious.  Aheunt  studia  in  mores.  This 
study  renders  men  acute,  inquisitive,  dexterous,  prompt 
in  attack,  ready  in  defence,  full  of  resources.  In  other 
35  countries,  the  people,  more  simple,  and  of  a  less  mercu- 


Conciliation  with  the  Colonictf.  23 

iiiil  ciust,  judge  ui  an  ill  priuciple  in  govenimi'iit  only  by 
an  actual  grievance ;  here  they  anticipate  the  evil,  and 
judge  of  the  jii-essure  of  tlie  grievance  by  the  badness 
of  the  principle.  They  augur  misgovernment  at  a  dis- 
tance, and  snuff  the  approach  of  tyranny  in  every  5 
tainted  breeze.    • 

The  last  cause  of  this  disobedient  spirit  in  the  Colonies 
IS  hardly  less  powerful  than  the  rest,  as  it  is  not  merely  • 
mural,  but  laid  deep  in  the  natural  constitution  of  things. 
Three  thousand  miles  of  ocean  lie  between  you  and  them.  10 
No  contrivance  can  prevent  the  effect  of  this  distance  in 
weakening  government.     Seas   roll,   and  months   pass, 
between  the  order  and  the  execution ;  and  the  want  of  a 
siKjedy  explanation  of  a  single  point  is  enough  to  defeat 
a  whole  system.     You  have,  indeed,  winged  ministers  of  15 
vengeance,  who  carry  your  bolts  in  their  pounces  to  the 
remotest  verge  of  the  sea.     But  there  a  power  steps  in 
that  limits  the  arrogance  of  raging  passions  and  furious 
elements,  and  snys,  So  far  shalt  thou  go,  and  no  farther. 
Who  are  you,  that  you  should  fret  and  rage,  and  bite  the  20 
chains  of  nature  ?    Nothing  woi-se  happens  to  you  than 
does  to  all  nations  who  have  extensive  empire;  and  it 
happens   in   all   the  forms  into  which  empire    can   be 
thrown.     In  large  Imdies  the  circulation  of  power  must 
be  less  vigorous  at  the  extremities.    Nature  has  said  it.  25 
The  Turk  cannot  govern  Egypt  and  Arabia  and  Kurdis- 
tan as  he  governs  Thrace ;  nor  has  he  the  same  domin- 
ion in  Crimea  and  Algiers  which  he  has  at  Bnisa  and 
Smyrna.    Despotism  itself  is  obliged  to  truck  and  huck- 
ster.    The  Sultan  gets  such  obedience  as  he  can.     He  30 
governs  with  a  loose  rein,  that  he  may  govern  at  all ;  and 
the  whole  of  the  force  and  vigor  of  his  authority  in  his 
centre  is  derived  from  a  prudent  relaxation  in  all  his 
borders.     Spain,  in  her  provinces,  is,  i)erhaps,  not  so  well 
obeyed  as  you  are  in  yours.     She  complies,  too ;  she  36 


24  linrhr. 

submits;  .she  watclu's  times.  Tiiis  is  tin*  immutable  con- 
dition, the  eternal  law  of  extensive  and  <  let  ached  emj)ire. 
Then,  Sir,  from  these  six  capital  sources  —  of  descent, 
of  form  of  government,  of  religion  in  the  Northern  Prov- 
5  inces,  of  manners  in  the  Soutlicm,  of  education,  of  the 
remoteness  of  situation  from  the  lirst  mover  of  govern- 
ment—  from  all  these  causes  a  tierce  s])irit  of  liberty 
"has  grown  uji.  It  lias  grown  with  tlic  ,u'I■<>^^  tli  ol'  tlic  j»eo- 
ple  in  your  Colonies,  and  increased  with  tlic  increas«'  f»f 

10  their  wealth;  a  s])irit  that  unhapjnly   nicctinLr  with  an 

exercise  of  jiowrr  m    I'ln-land  which,  however  hiwt'ul,  is 

not  reconcilable  to  any  it  leas  of  lil)erty,  much  less  with 

theirs,  has  kindled  this  flame  that  is  ready  to  consume  us. 

I   dn  \uA    mean   to  (•(.niiiicnd  either  the  si)iiit    in   tliis 

15  excess,  or  the  moral  causes  which  produce  it.  Perhaps  a 
more  smooth  and  accommodating  spirit  of  freedom  in 
them  would  be  more  acceptable  to  us.  IN  i1ia])s  iihas  ol 
liberty  might  be  desired  more  reconcihihh'  with  an  arbi- 
trary and  boundless  authority.      IVrliaps  we  miLclit  wish 

20  the  Colonists  to  be  i>ersuaded  that  their  lilxity  is  more 
secure  when  held  in  trust  for  them  by  us,  as  their  c^uard- 
ians  during  a  perjictual  minority,  than  witli  any  jiart  of 
it  in  their  own  hands.  The  question  is,  not  wlietlicr 
their  spirit  deserves  pi-aise  or  blame,  but  —  what,  in  the 

25  name  of  God,  shall  we  do  with  it  ?  You  have  l)efore  you 
the  object,  such  as  it  is,  with  all  its  glories,  with  all  its 
imperfections  on  its  head.  You  see  the  magnitude,  the 
importance,  the  temper,  the  habits,  the  disorders.  By 
all  these  considerations  we  are  strongly  urged  to  deter- 

30  mine  something  concerning  it.  AVe  are  called  ujwn  to  fix 
some  rule  and  line  for  our  future  conduct  which  may 
give  a  little  stability  to  our  politics,  and  prevent  the 
return  of  such  unhappy  deliberations  as  the  present. 
Every  such  return  will  bring  the  matter  before  us  in  a 

35  still  more  untractable  form.     For,  what  astonishing  and 


Conciltuif"/(   'liih   till'  Colonies,  25 

incredible  things  have  we  not  seen  already !  What 
monsters  have  not  been  generated  from  this  unnatural 
(ontention !  AVhilst  every  principle  of  authority  and 
resistance  has  been  pushed,  upon  both  sides,  as  far  as  it 
would  go,  there  is  nothing  so  solid  and  certain,  either  in  5 
reasoning  or  in  practice,  that  has  not  been  shaken.  Until 
very  lately  all  authority  in  America  seemed  to  be  nothing 
l)ut  an  emanation  from  yours.  Even  the  popular  part  of 
the  Colony  Constitution  derived  all  its  activity  and  its 
first  vital  movement  from  the  pleasure  of  the  Crown,  lo 
We  thought.  Sir,  that  the  utmost  which  the  discontented 
('olonists  could  do  was  to  disturb  authority;  we  never 
dreamt  they  could  of  themselves  supply  it  —  knowing  in 
general  what  an  operose  business  it  is  to  establish  a  gov- 
ernment absolutely  new.  But  having,  for  our  purposes  16 
in  this  contention,  resolved  that  none  but  an  obedient 
Assembly  should  sit,  the  humors  of  the  people  there, 
finding  all  passage  through  the  legal  channel  stopped, 
with  great  violence  broke  out  another  way.  Some  prov- 
inces have  tried  their  experiment,  as  we  have  tried  ours  ;  20 
and  theirs  has  succeeded.  They  have  formed  a  govern- 
ment sufficient  for  its  purposes,  without  the  bustle  of  a 
revolution  or  the  troublesome  formality  of  an  election. 
ICvident  necessity  and  tacit  consent  have  done  the  busi- 
ness in  an  instant.  So  well  they  have  done  it,  that  Lord  25 
1  )unmore  —  the  account  is  among  the  fragments  on  your 
table  —  tells  you  that  the  new  institution  is  infinitely 
l)etter  obeyed  than  the  ancient  government  ever  was  in 
its  most  fortunate  periods.  Obedience  is  what  makes 
'overnment,  and  not  the  names  by  which  it  is  called ;  so 
;n)t  the  name  of  Governor,  as  formerly,  or  Committee,  as 
it  present.  This  new  government  has  originated  directly 
from  the  people,  and  was  not  transmitted  through  any  of 
the  ordinary  artificial  media  of  a  positive  constitution. 
It  was  not  a  manufacture  ready  formed,  and  transmitted  35 


26  Burke. 

to  them  in  that  condition  from  England.  The  evil  aris- 
ing from  hence  is  this ;  that  the  Colonists  having  once 
found  the  ]X)ssibility  of  enjoying  the  advantages  of  order 
in  the  midst  of  a  struggle  for  liberty,  such  struggles  will 

5  not  henceforward  seem  so  terrible  to  the  settled  and 
sober  part  of  mankind  as  tliey  had  appeared  before  the 
trial. 

Pursuing  the  same  plan  of  punishing  by  the  denial  of 
the  exercise  of  government  to  still  greater  lengths,  we 

10  wholly  abrogated  the  ancient  government  of  Massachu- 
setts. We  were  confident  that  the  first  feeling,  if  not 
the  very  prospect,  of  anarchy  would  instantly  enforce  a 
complete  submission.  The  experiment  was  tried.  A 
new,  strange,  unexpected  face  of  tilings  ap{)eared.     Anar- 

16  chy  is  found  tolerable.  A  vast  province  has  now  sub- 
sisted, and  subsisted  in  a  considerable  degree  of  health 
and  vigor  for  near  a  twelvemonth,  without  Governor, 
without  public  Council,  without  judges,  without  execu- 
tive magistrates.     How  long  it  will  continue  in  this  state, 

20  or  what  may  arise  out  of  this  unheard-of  situation,  how 
can  the  wisest  of  us  conjecture  ?  Our  late  experience 
has  taught  us  that  many  of  those  fundamental  principles, 
formerly  believed  infallible,  are  either  not  of  the  impor- 
tance they  were  imagined  to  be,  or  that  we  have  not  at 

25  all  adverted  to  some  other  far  more  important  and  far 
more  powerful  principles,  which  entirely  overrule  those 
we  had  considered  as  omniix)tent.  I  am  much  against 
any  further  experiments  which  tend  to  put  to  the  proof 
any  more  of  these  allowed  opinions  which  contribute  so 

30  much  to  the  public  tranquillity.  In  effect,  we  suffer  as 
much  at  home  by  this  loosening  of  all  ties,  and  this  con- 
cussion of  all  establislied  opinions,  as  we  do  abroad ;  for 
in  order  to  prove  that  the  Americans  have  no  riglit  to 
their  liberties,  we  are  every  day  endeavoring  to  subvert 

35  the  maxims  which  preserve  the  whole  spirit  of  our  own. 


Conciliatian  with  the.  Colonies.  27 

To  prove  that  tlie  Americans  ought  nut  to  be  free,  we 
are  obliged  to  depreciate  the  value  of  freedom  itself ;  and 
we  never  seem  to  gain  a  paltry  advantage  over  them  in 
debate  without  attacking  some  of  those  principles,  or 
deriding  some  of  those  feelings,  for  which  our  ancestors  6 
have  shed  their  blood. 

But,  Sir,  in  wishing  to  put  an  end  to  pernicious  experi- 
ments, I  do  not  mean  to  preclude  the  fullest  inquiry. 
Far  from  it.     Far  from  deciding  on  a  sudden  or  partial 
view,  I  would  patiently  go  round  and  round  the  subject,  lo 
and  survey  it  minutely  in  every  possible  aspect.     Sir,  if 
I  were  capable  of  engaging  you  to  an  equal  attention,  I 
would  state  that,  as  far  as  I  am  capable  of  discerning, 
there  are  but  three  ways  of  proceeding  relative  to  this 
stubborn  spirit  which  prevails  in  your  Colonies,  and  dis- 16 
turbs  your  government.      These  are  —  to  change  that 
spirit,  as  inconvenient,  by  removing  the  causes ;  to  prose- 
cute it  as  criminal ;  or  to  comply  with  it  as  necessary. 
I  would  not  be  guilty  of  an  imperfect  enumeration ;  I 
can  think  of  but  these  three.    Another  has  indeed  been  20 
started,  —  that  of  giving  up  the  Colonies  ;  but  it  met  so 
slight  a  reception  that  I  do  not  think  myself  obliged  to 
dwell  a  great  while  upon  it.     It  is  nothing  but  a  little 
sally  of  anger,  like  the  frowardness  of  peevish  children, 
who,  when  they  cannot  get  all  they  would   have,  are  25 
resolved  to  take  nothing. 

The  first  of  these  plans  —  to  change  the  spirit,  as  in- 
convenient, by  removing  the  causes  —  I  think  is  the  most 
like  a  systemjitic  proceeding.  It  is  radical  in  its  princi- 
])1p  ;  but  it  is  attended  with  great  difficulties,  some  of  3u 
them  little  short,  as  I  conceive,  of  impossibilities.  This 
^vill  appear  by  examining  into  the  plans  which  have  been 
proposed. 

As  the  growing  population  in  the  Colonies  is  evidently 
one  cause  of  their  resistance,  it  was  last  session  men-  36 


28  Burke, 

tioned  in  both  Houses,  by  men  of  weight,  and  received 
not  without  applause,  that  in  order  to  check  this  evil  it 
would  be  proper  for  the  Crown  to  make  no  further  grants 
of  land.     But  to  this  scheme  there  are  two  objections. 

5  The  first,  that  there  is  already  so  much  unsettled  land  in 
private  hands  as  to  afford  room  for  an  immense  future 
population,  although  the  Crown  not  only  withheld  its 
grants,  but  annihilated  its  soil.  If  this  be  the  case,  then 
the  only  effect  of  this  avarice  of  desolation,  this  hoard- 

10  ing  of  a  royal  wilderness,  would  be  to  raise  the  value  of 
the  possessions  in  the  hands  of  the  great  private  monopo- 
lists, without  any  atlequate  check  to  the  growing  and 
alarming  mischief  of  population. 

But  if  you  stopped  your  grants,  what  would  be  the 

15  consequence  ?  The  people  would  occupy  without  grants. 
They  have  already  so  occupied  in  many  j)laces.  You 
cannot  station  garrisons  in  every  part  of  these  deserts. 
If  you  drive  the  people  from  one  place,  they  will  carry 
on  their  annual  tillage,  and  remove  with  their  flocks  and 

20  herds  to  another.  Many  of  the  people  in  the  back  settle- 
ments are  already  little  attached  to  particular  situations. 
Already  they  have  topped  the  Appalachian  Mountains. 
From  thence  they  behold  before  them  an  immense  plain, 
one  vast,  rich,  level  meadow ;  a  square  of  five  hundred 

25  miles.  Over  this  they  would  wander  without  a  possibil- 
ity of  restraint ;  they  would  change  their  manners  with 
the  habits  of  their  life ;  would  soon  forget  a  government 
by  which  they  were  disowned ;  would  become  hordes  of 
English  Tartars  ;  and^  pouring  down  upon  your  unforti- 

30  fied  frontiers  a  fierce  and  irresistible  cavalry,  become 
masters  of  your  governors  and  your  counsellors,  your 
collectors  and  comptrollers,  and  of  all  the  slaves  that 
adhered  to  them.  Such  would,  and  in  no  long  time 
must  be,  the  effect  of  attempting  to  forbid  as  a  crime 

35  and  to  suppress  as  an  evil  the  command  and  blessing  of 


Concili<tt>'>ii   II', th  thr  Colonies.  29 

providence.  Increase  and  multiply/.  Such  would  be  the 
happy  result  of  the  endeavor  to  keep  as  a  lair  of  wild 
beasts  that  earth  which  God,  by  an  express  charter,  has 
given  to  the  children  of  men.  Far  different,  and  surely 
much  wiser,  has  been  our  policy  hitherto.  Hitherto  we  5 
have  invited  our  people,  by  every  kind  of  bounty,  to 
Hxed  establishments.  We  have  invited  the  husbandman 
to  look  to  authority  for  his  title.  We  have  taught  him 
piously  to  believe  in  the  mysterious  virtue  of  wax  and 
parchment.  We  have  thrown  each  tract  of  land,  as  it  lO 
was  peopled,  into  districts,  that  the  ruling  power  should 
never  l)e  wholly  out  of  sight  We  have  settled  all  we 
could ;  and  we  have  carefully  attended  every  settlement 
with  government. 

Adhering,  Sir,  as  I  do,  to  this  policy,  as  well  as  for  15 
the  reasons  I  have  just  given,  1  think  this  new  project 
of  hedging-in    population    to   be   neither    prudent    nor 
practicable. 

To  impoverish  the  Colonies  in  general,  and  in  particu- 
lar to  arrest  the  noble  course  of  tlieir  marine  enterprises,  20 
would  be  a  more  easy  task.  I  freely  confess  it.  We 
have  shown  a  disj)osition  to  a  system  of  this  kind,  a  dis- 
|K)sition  even  to  continue  the  restraint  after  the  offence, 
looking  on  ourselves  as  rivals  to  our  Colonies,  and  per- 
suatled  that  of  course  we  must  gain  all  that  they  shall  25 
lose.  Much  mischief  we  may  certainly  do.  The  power 
inadequate  to  all  other  things  is  often  more  than  sufficient 
for  this.  I  do  not  look  on  the  direct  and  immediate 
IK)wer  of  the  Colonies  to  resist  our  violence  as  very  for- 
midable. In  this,  however,  I  may  l)e  mistaken.  But  30 
when  I  consider  that  we  have  Colonies  for  no  purpose 
but  to  be  serviceable  to  us,  it  seems  to  my  poor  under- 
standing a  little  preposterous  to  make  them  unserviceable 
in  order  to  keep  them  obedient.  It  is,  in  truth,  nothing 
more  than  the  old  and,  as  I  thought,  exploded  problem  35 


30  Burke, 

of  tyranny,  which  proposes  to  beggar  its  subjects  into 
submission.  But  remember,  when  you  have  completed 
your  system  of  impoverishment,  that  nature  still  pro- 
ceeds in   her  ordinary  course;  that  discontent  will  in- 

5  crease  with  misery  ;  and  that  there  are  critical  moments 
in  the  fortune  of  all  states  when  they  who  are  too  weak 
to  contribute  to  your  prosperity  may  be  strong  enough  to 
complete  your  ruin.     Spoliatis  anna  supersunt. 

The  temper  and  character  which  prevail  in  our  Colonies 

10  are,  I  am  afraid,  unalterable  by  any  human  art.  We 
cannot,  I  fear,  falsify  the  pedigree  of  this  fierce  people, 
and  persuade  them  that  they  are  not  sprung  from  a 
nation  in  whose  veins  the  blood  of  freedom  circulates. 
The  language  in  which  they  would  hear  you  tell  them 

15  this  tale  would  detect  the  imposition  ;  your  speech  would 
betray  you.  An  Englishman  is  the  unfittest  person  on 
earth  to  argue  another  Englishman  into  slavery. 

I  think  it  is  nearly  as  little  in  our  power  to  change 
their  republican  religion  as  their  free  descent ;  or  to  sub- 

20  stitute  the  Roman  Catholic  as  a  penalty,  or  the  Church 
of  England  as  an  improvement.  The  mode  of  inquisi- 
tion and  dragooning  is  going  out  of  fashion  in  the  Old 
"World,  and  1  should  not  confide  mudi  to  their  efficacy  in 
the  New.     The  education  of  the  Americans  is  also  on 

25  the  same  unalterable  bottom  with  their  religion.  You 
cannot  persuade  them  to  bum  their  books  of  curious 
science ;  to  banish  their  laAV^'ers  from  their  courts  of 
laws ;  or  to  quench  the  lights  of  their  assemblies  by  re- 
fusing to  choose  those  persons  who  are  best  read  in  their 

30  privileges.  It  would  be  no  less  impracticable  to  think 
of  wholly  annihilating  the  popular  assemblies  in  which 
these  lawyers  sit.  The  army,  by  which  we  must  govern 
in  their  place,  would  be  far  more  chargeable  to  us,  not 
quite  so  effectual,  and  perhaps  in  the  end  full  as  difficult 

35  to  be  kept  in  obedience. 


Conciliation  with  the  Colonies,  81 

With  regard  to  the  high  aristocratic  spirit  of  Virginia 
and  the  Southern  Colonies,  it  has  been  proposed,  I  know, 
to  reduce  it  by  declaring  a  general  enfranchisement  of 
their  slaves.  Tliis  object  has  had  its  advocates  and 
panegyrists ;  yet  I  never  could  argue  myself  into  any  6 
opinion  of  it  Slaves  are  often  much  attached  to  their 
masters.  A  general  wild  offer  of  liberty  would  not 
always  be  accepted.  History  furnishes  few  instances  of 
it.  It  is  sometimes  as  hard  to  persuade  slaves  to  be  free, 
as  it  is  to  compel  freemen  to  be  slaves;  and  in  this  lo 
auspicious  scheme  we  should  have  both  these  pleasing 
tasks  on  our  hands  at  once.  But  when  we  talk  of  en- 
franchisement, do  we  not  perceive  that  the  American 
master  may  enfranchise  too,  and  arm  servile  hands  in 
defence  of  freedom  ?  —  a  measure  to  which  other  people  15 
have  had  recourse  more  than  once,  and  not  without 
success,  in  a  desiderate  situation  of  their  affairs. 

Slaves  as  these  unfortunate  black  people  are,  and  dull 
as  all  men  are  from  slavery,  must  they  not  a  little  sus- 
pect the  offer  of  freedom  from  that  very  nation  which  20 
has  sold  them  to  their  present  masters  ?  —  from  that 
nation,  one  of  whose  causes  of  quarrel  with  those  mas- 
ters is  their  refusal  to  deal  any  more  in  that  inhuman 
traffic  ?  An  offer  of  freedom  from  England  would  come 
rather  oddly,  shipped  to  them  in  an  African  vessel  which  25 
is  refused  an  entry  into  the  ports  of  Virginia  or  Carolina 
with  a  cargo  of  three  hundred  Angola  negroes.  It  would 
be  curious  to  see  the  Guinea  captain  attempting  at  the 
same  instant  to  publish  his  proclamation  of  liberty,  and 
to  advertise  his  sale  of  slaves.  so 

But  let  us  suppose  all  these  moral  difficulties  got  over. 
The  ocean  remains.  You  cannot  pump  this  dry;  and  as 
long  as  it  continues  in  its  present  bed,  so  long  all  the 
causes  which  weaken  authority  by  distance  will  contimu*. 

**  Te  gods,  annihilate  but  space  and  time, 
And  make  two  lovers  happy!** 


32  Burke, 

was  a  pious  and  passionate  prayer ;  but  just  as  reason- 
able as  many  of  the  serious  wishes  of  grave  and  solemn 
politicians.    . 

If  then,  Sir,  it  seems  almost  desperate  to  think  of  any 

5  alterative  course  for  changing  the  moral  causes,  and  not 
quite  easy  to  remove  the  natural,  which  produce  preju- 
dices irreconcilable  to  the  late  exercise  of  our  authority  — 
but  that  the  spirit  infallibly  will  continue,  and,  continu- 
ing, will  produce  such  effects  as  now  embarrass  us  —  tlie 

10  second  mode  under  consideration  is  to  prosecute  that 
spirit  in  its  overt  acts  as  criminal. 

At  this  projwsition  I  must  pause  a  moment.  The 
thing  seems  a  great  deal  too  big  for  my  ideas  of  juris- 
prudence.    It  should  seem  to  my  way  of  conceiving  such 

15  matters  that  there  is  a  very  wide  difference,  in  reason 
and  policy,  between  the  mode  of  proceeding  on  the 
irregular  conduct  of  scattered  individuals,  or  even  of 
bands  of  men  who  disturb  order  within  the  state,  and 
the  civil  dissensions  which  may,  from  time  to  time,  on 

20  great  questions,  agitate  the  several  communities  which 
compose  a  great  empire.  It  looks  to  me  to  be  narrow 
and  pedantic  to  apply  the  ordinary  ideas  of  criminal 
justice  to  this  great  public  contest.  I  do  not  know  the 
method  of  drawing  up  an  indictment  against  a  whole 

25  people.  I  cannot  insult  and  ridicule  the  feelings  of 
millions  of  my  fellow-creatures  as  Sir  Edward  Coke  in- 
sulted one  excellent  individual  (Sir  Walter  Raleigh)  at 
the  bar.  I  hope  I  am  not  ri^)e  to  pass  sentence  on  the 
gravest   public   bodies,   intrusted   with   magistracies   of 

30  great  authority  and  dignity,  and  charged  with  the  safety 
of  their  fellow-citizens,  uiK)n  the  very  same  title  that  I 
am.  I  really  think  that,  for  wise  men,  this  is  not  judi- 
cious ;  for  sober  men,  not  decent ;  for  minds  tinctured 
with  humanity,  not  mild  and  merciful. 

35      Perhaps,  Sir,  I  am  mistaken  in  my  idea  of  an  empire. 


Conciliation  with  the  Colonies,  83 

as  distinguished  from  a  single  state  or  kingdom.     But 
my  idea  of  it  is  this  ^  that  an  empire  is  the  aggregate  of 
many  states  under  one  common  head,  whether  this  head 
be  a  monarch  or  a  presiding  republic.     It  does,  in  such 
constitutions,  frequently  happen — and  nothing  but  the  5 
dismal,  cold,  dead  uniformity  of  servitude  can  prevent 
its  happening  —  that  the  subordinate  parts  have  many 
local  privileges  and  immunities.     Between   these   privi- 
leges and  the  supreme  common  authority  the  line  may  be 
extremely   nice.     Of  course   disputes,   often,  too,   very  10 
bitter  disputes,  and  much  ill  blood,  will  arise.    But  though 
every  privilege  is  an  exemption,  in  the  case,  from  the 
ordinary  exercise   of  the   supreme  authority,   it  is   no 
denial  of  it.     The  claim  of  a  privilege  seems  rather,  ex 
vi  termini,  to  imply  a  superior  power ;  for  to  talk  of  the  15 
privileges  of  a  state*  or  of  a  person  who  has  no  superior 
is  hardly  any  better  than  speaking  nonsense.     Now,  in 
such  unfortunate  quarrels  among  the  component  parts  of 
a  great  political  union  of  communities,  I  can  scarcely 
conceive  anything  more  completely  imprudent  than  for  20 
the  head  of  the  empire  to  insist  that,  if  any  privilege 
is  pleaded  against  his  will  or  his  acts,  his  whole  authority 
is  denied ;   instantly  to  proclaim   rebellion,  to   beat  to 
arms,  and  to  put  the  offending  provinces  under  the  ban. 
Will  not  this,  Sir,  very  soon  teach  the  provinces  to  make  25 
no  distinctions  on  their  part  ?     Will  it  not  teach  them 
that  the  government,  against  which  a  claim  of  liberty  is « 
tantamount  to  high  treason,  is  a  government  to  which  sub- 
mission is  equivalent  to  slavery  ?     It  may  not  always  be 
quite  convenient  to  impress  dependent  communities  with  :» 
8U(?h  an  idea. 

We  are,  indeed,  in  all  disputes  with  the  Colonies,  by 
the  necessity  of  tilings,  the  judge.  It  is  true,  Sir.  But 
I  confess  that  the  character  of  judge  in  my  own  cause  is 
a  thing  that  frightens  me.     Instead  of  tilling  me  with  36 


34  Burke. 

pride,  I  am  exceedingly  humbled  by  it.  I  cannot  pro- 
ceed with  a  stern,  assured,  judicial  confidence,  until  I 
find  myself  in  something  more  like  a  judicial  character. 
I  must  have  these  hesitations  as  long  as  I  am  compelled 
6  to  recollect  that,  in  my  little  reading  upon  such  contests 
as  these,  the  sense  of  mankind  has  at  least  as  often  de- 
cided against  the  superior  as  the  subordinate  power. 
Sir,  let  me  add,  too,  that  the  opinion  of  my  having  some 
abstract  right  in  my  favor  would  not  put  me  much  at 

10  my  ease  in  passing  sentence,  unless  I  could  be  sure  that 
there  were  no  rights  which,  in  their  exercise  under  cer- 
tain circumstances,  were  not  the  most  odious  of  all 
wrongs  and  the  most  vexatious  of  all  injustice.  Sir, 
these  considerations  have  great  weight  with  me  when  I 

15  find  things  so  circumstanced,  that  I  see  the  same  party 
at  once  a  civil  litigant  against  me  in  point  of  right  and 
a  culprit  before  me,  while  I  sit  as  a  criminal  judge  on 
acts  of  his  whose  moral  quality  is  to  be  decided  upon  the 
merits  of  that  very  litigation.     Men  are  every  now  and 

20  then  put,  by  the  complexity  of  human  affairs,  into  strange 
Situations ;  but  justice  is  the  same,  let  the  judge  be  in 
what  situation  he  will. 

There  is.  Sir,  also  a  circumstance  which  convinces  me 
that  this  mode  of  criminal  proceeding  is  not,  at  least  in 

25  the  present  stage  of  our  contest,  altogether  expedient ; 

which  is  nothing  less  than  the  conduct  of  those  very  per- 

'  sons  who  have   seemed  to  adopt  that  mode  by  lately 

declaring  a  rebellion  in  Massachusetts  Bay,  as  they  had 

formerly  addressed  to  have  traitors  brought  hither,  under 

30  an  Act  of  Henry  the  Eighth,  for  trial.  For  though 
rebellion  is  declared,  it  is  not  proceeded  against  as  such, 
nor  have  any  steps  been  taken  towards  the  apprehension 
or  conviction  of  any  individual  offender,  either  on  our 
late  or  our  former  Address ;  but  modes  of  public  coercion 

35  have  been  adopted,  and  such  as  have  much  more  resem- 


Conciliation  with  the  Colonies,  85 

blance  to  a  sort  of  qualified  hostility  towards  an  indepen- 
dent power  than  the  punishment  of  rebellious  subjects. 
All  this  seems  rather  inconsistent;  but  it  shows  how 
difficult  it  is  to  apply  these  juridical  ideas  to  our  present 
case.  6 

In  this  situation,  let  us  seriously  and  coolly  ponder. 
What  is  it  we  have  got  by  all  our  menaces,  which  have 
l)een  many  and  ferocious?  What  advantage  have  we 
derived  from  the  penal  law?  we  have  passed,  and  which, 
for  the  time,  have  been  severe  and  numerous  ?  What  10 
advtinces  have  we  made  towards  our  object  by  the  send- 
ing of  a  force  which,  by  land  and  sea,  is  no  contemptible 
strength  ?  Has  the  disorder  abated  ?  Nothing  less. 
When  I  see  things  in  this  situation  after  such  confident 
hopes,  bold  promises,  and  active  exertions,  I  cannot,  for  15 
my  life,  avoid  a  suspicion  that  the  plan  itself  is  not 
correctly  right.  - 

If,  then,  the  removal  of  the  causes  of  this  spirit  of 
American  liberty  be  for  the  greater  part,  or  rather  en- 
tirely, impracticable  ;  if  the  ideas  of  criminal  process  be  20 
inapplicable  —  or,  if  applicable,  are  in  the  highest  degree 
inexpedient;  what  way  yet  remains?  No  way  is  open 
but  the  third  and  last,  —  to  comply  with  the  American 
spirit  as  necessary ;  or,  if  you  please,  to  submit  to  it  as 
a  necessary  evil.  26 

If  we  adopt  this  mode,  —  if  we  mean  to  conciliate  and 
concede,  —  let  us  see  of  what  nature  the  concession  ought 
to  be.  To  ascertain  the  nature  of  our  concession,  we 
must  look  at  their  complaint.  The  Colonies  complain 
that  they  have  not  the  characteristic  mark  and  seal  of  30 
British  freedom.  They  complain  that  they  are  taxed  in 
;i  Parliament  in  which  they  are  not  represented.  If  you 
iiuaii  to  satisfy  them  at  all,  you  must  satisfy  them  with 
r«'«;urd  to  this  complaint.  If  you  mean  to  please  any 
people  you  must  give  them  the  boon  which  they  ask;  35 


86  Burke. 

not  what  you  may  think  better  for  them,  but  of  a  kind 
totally  different.  Such  an  act  may  be  a  wise  regulation, 
but  it  is  no  concession ;  whereas  our  present  theme  is 
the  mode  of  giving  satisfaction. 
5  Sir,  I  think  you  must  perceive  that  I  am  resolved  this 
day  to  have  nothing  at  all  to  do  with  the  question  of 
the  right  of  taxation.  Some  gentlemen  startle  —  but  it 
is  true ;  I  put  it  totally  out  of  the  question.  It  is  less 
tlian  notliing  in  my  consideration.     I  do  not  indeed  won- 

10  der,  nor  will  you,  Sir,  that  gentlemen  of  profound  leara- 
ing  are  fond  of  displaying  it  on  this  profound  subject. 
But  my  consideration  is  narrow,  confined,  and  wholly 
limited  to  the  policy  of  the  question.  I  do  not  examine 
whether  the  giving  away  a  man's  money  be  a  power  ex- 

15  cepted  and  reserved  out  of  the  general  trust  of  govern- 
ment, and  how  far  all  mankind,  in  all  forms  of  polity, 
are  entitled  to  an  exercise  of  that  right  by  the  charter 
of  nature ;  or  whether,  on  the  contrary,  a  riglit  of  taxa- 
tion is  necessarily  involved  in  the  general  principle  of 

20  legislation,  and  inseparable  from  the  ordinary  supreme 
power.  These  are  deep  questions,  where  great  names 
militate  against  each  other,  where  reason  is  perplexed, 
and  an  appeal  to  authorities  only  thickens  the  con- 
fusion; for  high  and  reverend  authorities  lift  up  their 

25  heads  on  both  sides,  and  there  is  no  sure  footing  in  the 
middle.     This  point  is  the  great 

"  Serbonian  bog, 
Betwixt  Damiata  and  Mount  Casius  old, 
Where  armies  whole  have  sunk." 

30  I  do  not  intend  to  be  overwhelmed  in  that  bog,  though 
in  such  respectable  company.  The  question  with  me  is, 
not  whether  you  have  a  right  to  render  your  people  mis- 
erable, but  whether  it  is  not  your  interest  to  make  them 
happy.     It  is  not  what  a  lawyer  tells  me  I  maj/  do,  but 

35  what  humanity,  reason,  and  justice  tell  me  I  our/ht  to 


Conciliation  with  the  Colonies,  37 

•lo.  Is  a  politic  act  the  worse  for  being  a  generous  one  ? 
Is  no  concession  proper  but  that  which  is  made  from 
your  want  of  right  to  keep  what  you  grant  ?  Or  does  it 
lessen  the  grace  or  dignity  of  relaxing  in  the  exercise  of 
an  odious  claim  because  you  have  your  evidence-room  r» 
full  of  titles,  and  your  magazines  stuffed  with  arms  to 
enforce  them  ?  What  signify  all  those  titles,  and  all 
those  arms  ?  Of  what  avail  are  they,  when  the  reason 
of  the  thing  tells  me  that  the  assertion  of  my  title  is  the 
loss  of  my  suit,  and  that  I  could  do  nothing  but  wound  10 
myself  by  the  use  of  my  own  weapons  ? 

Such  is  steadfastly  my  opinion  of  the  absolute  necessity 
of  keeping  up  the  concord  of  this  Empire  by  an  unity  of 
spirit,  though  in  a  diversity  of  operations,  that,  if  I  were 
sure  the  Colonists  had,  at  their  leaving  this  country,  15 
sealed  a  regular  compact  of  servitude;  that  they  had 
solemnly  abjured  all  the  rights  of  citizens ;  that  they 
had  made  a  vow  to  renounce  all  ideas  of  liberty  for  them 
and  their  posterity  to  all  generations ;  yet  I  should  hold 
myself  obliged  to  conform  to  the  temper  I  found  uni-  20 
versally  prevalent  in  my  own  day,  and  to  govern  two 
million  of  men,  impatient  of  servitude,  on  the  principles 
of  freedom.  I  am  not  detenuining  a  point  of  law,  I  am 
restoring  tranquillity;  and  the  general  character  and 
situation  of  a  i)eople  must  determine  what  sort  of  gov-  25 
ernment  is  fitted  for  them.  That  point  nothing  else  can 
or  ought  to  determine. 

My  idea,  therefore,  without  considering  whether  we 
\  ield  as  matter  of  right,  or  grant  as  matter  of  favor,  is 
to  atlmit  the  i)eople  of  our  Colonies  into  an  interest  in  30 
the  Constitution ;  and,  by  recording  that  jwlmission  in  the 
journals  of  Parliament,  to  give  them  as  strong  an  assur- 
ance as  the  nature  of  the  thing  will  admit,  that  we  mean 
torever  to  a<lhere  to  that  solemn  declaration  of  system- 
itic  indulgence.  36 


88  Burke. 

Some  years  ago  the  repeal  of  a  revenue  Act,  upon  its 
understood  principle,  might  have  served  to  show  that  we 
intended  an  unconditional  abatement  of  the  exercise  of 
a  taxing  power.  Such  a  measure  was  then  sufficient  to 
5  remove  all  suspicion,  and  to  give  perfect  content.  But 
unfortunate  events  since  that  time  may  make  something 
further  necessary  ;  and  not  more  necessary  for  the  satis- 
faction of  the  Colonies  than  for  the  dignity  and  consist- 
ency of  our  own  future  proceedings. 

10  I  have  taken  a  very  incorrect  measure  of  the  dispo- 
sition of  the  House  if  this  proposal  in  itself  would  be 
received  with  dislike.  I  think,  Sir,  we  have  few  Ameri- 
can financiers.  But  our  misfortune  is,  we  are  too  acute, 
we  are  too  exquisite  in  our  conjectures  of  the  future,  for 

15  men  oppi-essed  with  such  great  and  present  evils.  Tlie 
more  moderate  among  the  opposers  of  Parliamentary 
concession  •  freely  confess  that  they  hope  no  good  from 
taxation,  but  they  apprehend  the  Colonists  have  further 
views ;  and  if  this  point  were  conceded,  they  would  in- 

20  stantly  attack  the  trade  laws.  These  gentlemen  are 
convinced  that  this  was  the  intention  from  the  beginning, 
and  the  quarrel  of  the  Americans  with  taxation  was  no 
more  than  a  cloak  and  cover  to  this  design.  Such  has 
been  the  language  even  of  a  gentleman  of  real  modera- 

25  tion,  and  of  a  natural  temper  well  adjusted  to  fair  and 
equal  government.  I  am,  however.  Sir,  not  a  little  sur- 
prised at  this  kind  of  discourse,  whenever  I  hear  it ;  and 
I  am  the  more  surprised  on  account  of  the  arguments 
which  I  constantly  find  in  company  with  it,  and  which 

30  are  often  urged  from  the  same  mouths  and  on  the  same 
day. 

For  instance,  when  we  allege  that  it  is  against  reason 
to  tax  a  people  under  so  many  restraints  in  trade  as  the 
Americans,  the  noble  lord  in  the  blue  ribbon  shall  tell 

35  you  that  the  restraints  on  trade  are  futile  and  useless  — 


Com'fi  nil  /"il    irith    th,     < 'ii/nnies,  39 

of  no  advantage  to  us,  and  ot  no  hurthen  to  those  on 
whom  they  are  imposed ;  that  the  trade  to  America  is 
not  secured  by  the  Acts  of  Navigation,  but  by  the  nat- 
ural and  irresistible  advantage  of  a  commercial  preference. 

Such  is  the  merit  of  the  trade  laws  in  this  posture  oft; 
the  debate.     But  when  strong  internal  circumstances  are 
urged  against  the  taxes ;  when  the  scheme  is  dissected ; 
wlien  experience  and  the  nature  of  things  are  brought  to 
prove,  and  do  prove,  the  utter  impossibility  of  obtaining 
an   effective   revenue   from   the   Colonies ;    when   these  lo 
things  are  pressed,  or  rather  press  themselves,  so  as  to 
drive  the  advocates  of  Colony  taxes  to  a  clear  admission 
of  the  futility  of  the  scheme;  then,  Sir,  the  sleeping 
trade  laws  revive  from  their  trance,  and  this  useless  tax- 
ation is  to  be  kept  sacred,  not  for  its  own  sake,  but  as  a  15 
counter-guard  and  security  of  the  laws  of  trade. 

Then,  Sir,  you  keep  up  revenue  laws  which  are  mis- 
chievous, in  order  to  preserve  trade  laws  that  are  useless. 
Such  is  the  wisdom  of  our  plan  in  both  its  members. 
They  are  separately  given  up  as  of  no  value,  and  yet  one  20 
is  always  to  be  defended  for  the  sake  of  the  other  ;  but 
I  cannot  agree  with  the  noble  lord,  nor  with  the  pam- 
phlet from  whence  he  seems  to  have  borrowed  these 
ideas  concerning  the  inutility  of  the  trade  laws.  For, 
without  idolizing  tliem,  I  am  sure  they  are  still,  in  many  25 
ways,  of  groat  use  to  us ;  and  in  former  times  they  have 
l)een  of  the  greatest.  They  do  confine,  and  they  do 
jjreatly  narrow,  the  market  for  the  Americans ;  but  my 
perfect  conviction  of  this  does  not  help  me  in  the  least 
to  discern  how  the  revenue  laws  form  any  security  what-  .TO 
soever  to  the  commercial  regulations,  or  that  these  com- 
nwrcial  regulations  are  the  true  ground  of  the  quarrel, 
or  that  the  giving  way,  in  any  one  instance  of  authority, 
is  to  lose  all  that  may  remain  unconceded. 

One  fact  is  clear  and  indisputable.    The  public  and  85 


40  Burke, 

avowed  origin  of  this  quarrel  was  on  taxation.  Tliis 
quarrel  has  indeed  brought  on  new  disputes  on  new  ques- 
tions ;  but  certainly  the  least  bitter,  and  the  fewest  of 
all,  on  the  trade  laws.     To  judge  which  of  the  two  be 

5*the  real  radical  cause  of  quarrel,  we  have  to  see  whether 
the  commercial  dispute  did,  in  order  of  time,  precede  the 
dispute  on  taxation  ?  There  is  not  a  shadow  of  evidence 
for  it.  Next,  to  enable  us  to  judge  whether  at  this 
moment  a  dislike  to  the  trade  laws  be  the  real  cause  of 

10  quarrel,  it  is  absolutely  necessary  to  put  the  taxes  out 
of  the  question  by  a  repeal.  See  how  the  Americans  act 
in  this  position,  and  then  you  will  be  able  to  discern 
correctly  what  is  the  true  object  of  the  controversy,  or 
whether  any  controversy  at  all  will  remain.     Unless  you 

15  consent  to  remove  this  cause  of  difference,  it  is  impossi- 
ble, with  decency,  to  assert  that  the  dispute  is  not  upon 
wiiat  it  is  avowed  to  be.  And  I  would.  Sir,  recommend 
to  your  serious  consideration  whether  it  be  prudent  to 
form  a  rule  for  punishing  people,  not  on  their  own  acts, 

20  but  on  your  conjectures  ?  Surely  it  is  preposterous  at 
the  very  best.  It  is  not  justifying  your  anger  by  their 
misconduct,  but  it  is  converting  your  ill-will  into  their 
delinquency. 

But  the  Colonies  will  go  further.     Alas !  alas  !  when 

25  will  this  speculation  against  fact  and  reason  end  ?  AVhat 
will  quiet  these  panic  fears  which  we  entertain  of  the 
hostile  effect  of  a  conciliatory  conduct  ?  Is  it  true  that 
no  case  can  exist  in  which  it  is  proper  for  the  sovereign 
to  accede  to  the  desires  of  his  discontented  subjects  ? 

.TO  Is  there  anything  peculiar  in  this  case  to  make  a  rule 
for  itself  ?  Is  all  authority  of  course  lost  when  it  is  not 
pushed  to  the  extreme  ?  Is  it  a  certain  maxim  that  the 
fewer  causes  of  dissatisfaction  are  left  by  government, 
the  more  the  subject  will  be  inclined  to  resist  and  rebel? 

35      All  these  objections  being  in  fact  no  more  than  sus- 


Conciliation  with  the  Colonies,  41 

pic  ions,  conjectures,  divinations,  formed  in  defiance  of 
fact  and  experience,  tliey  did  not,  Sir,  discourage  me 
from  entertaining  the  idea  of  a  conciliatory  concession 
founded  on  the  principles  which  I  have  just  stated. 

In  forming  a  plan  for  this  purpose,  I  endeavored  to  5 
put  myself  in  that  fi-ame  of  mind  which  was  the  most 
natural  and  the  most  reasonable,  and  which  was  certainly 
the  most  probable  means  of  securing  me  from  all  error. 
I  set  out  with  a  perfect  distrust  of  my  own  abilities,  a 
total  renunciation  of  every  speculation  of  my  own,  and  lO 
with  a  profound  reverence  for  the  wisdom  of  our  ances- 
tors who  have  left  us  the  inheritance  of  so  happy  a  con- 
stitution and  so  flourishing  an  empire,  and,  what  is  a 
thousand  times  more  valuable,  the  treasury  of  the  max- 
ims and  principles  which  formed  the  one  and  obtained  15 
the  other. 

During  the  reigns  of  the  kings  of  Spain  of  the  Aus- 
trian family,  whenever  they  were  at  a  loss  in  the  Spanish 
councils,  it  was  common  for  their  statesmen  to  say  that 
they  ought  to  consult  the  genius  of  Philip  the  Second.  20 
The  genius  of  Philip  the  Second  might  mislead  them,  and 
tlie  issue  of  their  affairs  showed  that  they  had  not  chosen 
the  most  perfect  standard ;  but,  Sir,  I  am  sure  that  I 
shall  not  be  misled  when,  in  a  case  of  constitutional  diffi- 
culty, I  consult  the  genius  of  the  English  Constitution.  25 
Consulting  at  that  oracle  —  it  was  with  all  due  humility 
and  piety  —  I  found  four  capital  examples  in  a  similar 
case  before  me ;  those  of  Ireland,  Wales,  Chester,  and 
Durham. 

Ireland,  before  the  English  conquest,  though  never  30 
governed  by  a  despotic  power,  had  no  Parliament.  How 
far  the  English  Parliament  itself  was  at  that  time  mod- 
elled according  to  the  present  form  is  disputed  among 
antiquaries ;  but  we  have  all  the  reason  in  the  world  to 
be  assured  that  a  form  of  Parliament  such  as  England  35 


42  Burke. 

then  enjoyed  she  instantly  communicated  to  Ireland,  and 
we  are  equally  sure  that  almost  every  successive  improve- 
ment in  constitutional  liberty,  as  fast  as  it  was  made 
here,  was  transmitted  thither.     The  feudal  baronage  and 

6  the  feudal  knighthood,  the  roots  of  our  primitive  Con- 
stitution, were  early  transplanted  into  that  soil,  and 
grew  and  flourished  there.  Magna  Charta,  if  it  did  not 
give  us  originally  the  House  of  Commons,  gave  us  at 
least  a  House  of  Commons  of  weight  and  consequence. 

10  But  your  ancestors  did  not  churlishly  sit  down  alone  to 
the  feast  of  Magna  Charta.  Ireland  was  made  immedi- 
ately a  partaker.  This  benefit  of  English  laws  and  lil)- 
erties,  I  confess,  was  not  at  first  extended  to  all  Ireland. 
Mark  the  consequence.     English  authority  and  English 

15  lil)erties  had  exactly  the  same  boundaries.  Your  stan- 
dard could  never  be  advanced  an  inch  before  your  privi- 
leges. Sir  John  Davis  shows  beyond  a  doubt  that  the 
refusal  of  a  general  communication  of  these  rights  was 
the  true  cause  why  Ireland  was  five  hundred  years  in 

20  sul)duing ;  and  after  the  vain  projects  of  a  military  gov- 
ernment, attempted  in  the  reign  of  Queen  Elizabeth,  it 
was  soon  discovered  that  nothing  could  make  that  coun- 
try English,  in  civility  and  allegiance,  but  your  laws  and 
your  forms  of  legislature.     It  was  not  English  arms,  but 

25  the  English  Constitution,  that  conquered  Ireland.  From 
that  time  Ireland  has  ever  had  a  general  Parliament,  as 
she  had  before  a  partial  Parliament.  You  changed  the 
people ;  you  altered  the  religion  ;  but  you  never  touched 
the  form  or  the  vital  substance  of  free  government  in 

30  that  Kingdom.  You  deposed  kings  ;  you  restored  them  ; 
you  altered  the  succession  to  theirs,  as  well  as  to  your 
own  Crown ;  but  you  never  altered  their  Constitution,  the 
principle  of  which  was  respected  by  usurpation,  restored 
with  the   restoration   of   monarchy,  and   established,  I 

35  trust,  forever,  by   the   glorious   Revolution.     This   has 


Conciliation  with  the  Colonies.  43 

made  Ireland  the  great  and  flourishing  kingdom  that  it 
is,  and,  from  a  disgrace  and  a  burthen  intolerable  to  this 
nation,  has  rendered  her  a  principal  part  of  our  strength 
and  ornament.  This  country  cannot  be  said  to  have  ever 
formally  taxed  her.  The  irregular  things  done  in  the  5 
confusion  of  mighty  troubles  and  on  the  hinge  of  great 
revolutions,  even  if  all  were  done  that  is  said  to  have 
been  done,  form  no  example.  If  they  have  any  effect  in 
argument,  they  make  an  exception  to  prove  the  rule. 
None  of  your  own  liberties  could  stand  a  moment,  if  the  10 
casual  deviations  from  them  at  such  times  were  suffered 
to  l)e  used  as  proofs  of  tlieir  nullity.  By  the  lucrative 
amount  of  such  casual  breaches  in  the  constitution,  judge 
what  the  stated  and  fixed  rule  of  supply  has  been  in  that 
kingdom.  Your  Irish  pensioners  would  starve,  if  they  15 
had  no  other  fund  to'  live  on  than  taxes  granted  by  Eng- 
lish authority.  Turn  your  eyes  to  those  popular  grants 
from  whence  all  your  great  supplies  are  come,  and  learn 
to  respect  that  only  source  of  public  wealth  in  •  the 
British  Empire.  20 

My  next  example  is  Wales.  This  country  was  said  to 
be  reduced  by  Henry  the  Third.  It  was  said  more  truly 
to  be  so  by  Edward  the  First.  But  though  then  con- 
quered, it  was  not  lodked  ujwn  as  any  part  of  the  realm 
of  England.  Its  old  Constitution,  whatever  that  might  25 
have  been,  was  destroyed,  and  no  good  one  was  substi- 
tuted in  its  place.  The  care  of  that  tract  was  put  into 
the  hands  of  Lords  Marchers  —  a  form  of  government  of 
a  very  singular  kind ;  a  strange  heterogeneous  monster, 
something  between  hostility  and  government ;  perhaps  30 
it  has  a  sort  of  resemblance,  according  to  the  modes  of 
those  terms,  to  that  of  Commander-in-chief  at  present, 
to  whom  all  civil  power  is  granted  as  secondary.  The 
manners  of  the  Welsh  nation  followed  the  genius  of  the 
government.    The  people  were  ferocious,  restive,  savage,  36 


44  Burke, 

and  uncultivated ;  sometimes  composed,  never  pacified. 
Wales,  within  itself,  was  in  perpetual  disorder,  and  it 
kept  the  frontier  of  England  in  perpetual  alarm.  Bene- 
fits from  it  to  the  state  there  were  none.     Wales  was 

5  only  known  to  England  by  incursion  and  invasion. 

Sir,  during  that  state  of  things,  Parliament  was  not 
idle.  They  attempted  to  subdue  the  fierce  spirit  of  the 
Welsh  by  all  sorts  of  rigorous  laws.  They  prohibited  by 
statute  the  sending  all  sorts  of  arms  into  Wales,  as  you 

10  prohibit  by  proclamation  (with  something  more  of  doubt 
on  the  legality)  the  sending  arms  to  America.  They  dis- 
armed the  Welsh  by  statute,  as  you  attempted  (but  still 
with  more  question  on  the  legality)  to  disarm  New  Eng- 
land by  an  instruction.     They  made  an  Act  to  drag  of- 

16  fenders  from  Wales  into  England  for  trial,  as  you  have 
done  (but  with  more  hardship)  with  regard  to  America. 
By  another  Act,  where  one  of  the  parties  was  an  English- 
man, they  ordained  that  his  trial  should  be  always  by 
English.     They  made  Acts  to  restrain  trade,  as  you  do  ; 

20  and  they  prevented  the  Welsh  from  the  use  of  fairs  and 
markets,  as  you  do  the  Americans  from  fisheries  and 
foreign  ports.  In  short,  when  the  Statute  Book  was  not 
quite  so  much  swelled  as  it  is  now,  you  find  no  less  than 
fifteen  acts  of  penal  regulation  on  fhe  subject  of  Wales. 

25  Here  we  rub  our  hands.  —  A  fine  body  of  precedents 
for  the  authority  of  Parliament  and  the  use  of  it !  —  I 
admit  it  fully  ;  and  pray  add  likewise  to  these  precedents 
that  all  the  while  Wales  rid  this  Kingdom  like  an  incu- 
bus, that  it  was  an  unprofitable  and  oppressive  burthen, 

30  and  that  an  Englishman  travelling  in  that  country  could 
not  go  six  yards  from  the  high  road  without  being 
murdered. 

The  march  of  the  human  mind  is  slow.  Sir,  it  was 
not  until  after  two  hundred  years  discovered  that,  by  an 

35  eternal  law,  providence  had  decreed  vexation  to  violence, 


Conciliation  with  the  Colonies.  46 

and  poverty  to  rapine.     Your  ancestors  did  however  at 
length  oi)en  their  eyes  to  the  ill-husbandry  of  injustice. 
They  found  that  the  tyranny  of  a  free  people  could  of 
all  tyrannies  the  least  be  endured,  and  that  laws  made 
against  a  whole   nation   were   not  the   most    effectual  5 
methods  of  securing  its  obedience.     Accordingly,  in  the 
twenty-seventh  year  of  Henry  the  Eighth  the  course  was 
entirely  altered.     With  a  preamble  stating  the   entire 
and  perfect  rights  of  the  Crown  of  England,  it  gave  to 
the  Welsh  all  the  rights  and  privileges  of  English  sub-  lo 
jects.     A  political  order  was  established ;  the  military 
power  gave  way  to  the  civil ;  the  Marches  were  turned 
into  Counties.     But  that  a  nation  should  have  a  right  to 
English  liberties,  and  yet  no  share  at  all  in  the  funda- 
mental security  of  these  liberties  —  the  grant  of  their  15 
own  property  —  seemed  a  thing  so  incongruous,  that, 
eight  years  after,  that  is,  in  the  thirty-fifth  of  that  reign,- 
a  complete  and  not  ill  proportioned  representation  by 
counties  and  boroughs  was  bestowed  upon  Wales  by  Act 
of  Parliament.     From  that  moment,  as  by  a  charm,  the  20 
tumults  subsided  ;  obedience  was  restored  ;  peace,  order, 
and  civilization  followed  in  the  train  of  liberty.     When 
the  day-star  of  the  English  Constitution  had  arisen  in 
their  hearts,  all  was  harmony  within  and  without  — 

"  —  gimul  alba  nautis  25 

Stella  refulsit, 
Defliiit  saxis  agitatus  humor; 
Concldunt  venti,  fugiuntque  nubes, 
Et  minax  (quod  sic  voluere)  ponto 
Unda  recumbit."  30 

The  very  same  year  the  County  Palatine  of  Chester  re- 
ceived the  same  relief  from  its  oppressions  and  the  same 
remedy  to  its  disorders.     Before  this  time  Chester  was     ' 
little  less  distempered  than   Wales.     The   inliabitants, 
without  rights  themselves,  were  the  fittest  to  destroy  the  35 


46  Burke. 

rights  of  others;  and  from  thence  Richard  the  Second 
drew  the  standing  army  of  archers  with  which  for  a  time 
he  oppressed  England.  The  people  of  Chester  applied 
to  Parliament  in  a  petition  penned  a»  I  shall  read  to  you : 

6  "To  the  King,  our  Sovereign  Lprd,  in  most  humble  wise 
shewen  imto  your  excellent  Majesty  the  inhabitants  of 
your  (Jrace's  County  Palatine  of  Chester:  (1)  That  where 
the  said  County  Palatine  of  Chester  is  and  hath  been  al- 
ways   hitherto  exempt,  excluded,  and  separated  out  and 

10  from  your  High  Court  of  Parliament,  to  have  any  Knights 

and  Burgesses  within  the  said  Court;  by  reason  whereof 
the  said  inhabitants  have  hitherto  sustained  manifold 
disherisons,  losses,  and  damages,  as  well  in  their  lands, 
goods,  and  bodies,  as  in  the  good,  civil,  and  politic  goveni- 

15  ance  and  maintenance  of  the  commonwealth  of  their  said 

county;  (2)  And  forasmuch  as  the  said  inhabitants  have 
always  hitherto  been  bound  by  the  Acts  and  Statutes  made 
and  ordained  by  your  said  Highness  and  your  most  noble 
progenitors,  by  authority  of  the  said  Court,  as  far  forth 

20  as  other  counties,  cities,  and  boroughs  have  been,  that  have 

had  their  Knights  and  Burgesses  within  your  said  Court 
of  Parliament,  and  yet  have  had  neither  Knight  ne  Bur- 
gess there  for  the  said  County  Palatine;  the  said  inhab- 
itants, for  lack  thereof,  have  been  oftentimes  touched  and 

25  grieved  with  Acts  and  Statutes  made  within  the  said  Court, 

as  well  derogatory  unto  the  most  ancient  jurisdictions, 
liberties,  and  privileges  of  your  said  County  Palatine,  as 
prejudicial  unto  the  commonwealth,  quietness,  rest,  and 
peace  of  your  Grace's  most  bounden   subjects  inhabiting 

30  within  the  same." 

What  did  Parliament  with  this  audacious  address  ?  — 
Reject  it  as  a  libel  ?  Treat  it  as  an  affront  to  Govern- 
ment ?  Spurn  it  as  a  derogation  from  the  rights  of  legis- 
lature ?  Did  they  toss  it  over  the  table  ?  Did  they 
35  burn  it  by  the  hands  of  the  common  hangman  ?  —  They 
took  the  petition  of  grievance,  all  rugged  as  it  was,  with- 
out softening  or  temperament,  unpurged  of  the  original 


Conciliation  tvith  the  Colonies.  47 

bitterness  and  indignation  of  complaint  —  they  made  it 
the  very  preamble  to  their  Act  of  redress,  and  conse- 
crated its  principle  to  all  ages  in  the  sanctuary  of  legis- 
lation. 

Here  is  my  third  example.  It  was  attended  with  the  5 
success  of  the  two  former.  Chester,  civilized  as  well  as 
Wales,  has  demonstrated  that  freedom,  and  not  servitude, 
is  the  cure  of  anarchy ;  as  religion,  and  not  atheism,  is 
the  true  remedy  for  su|)erstition.  Sir,  this  pattern  of 
Chester  was  followed  in  the  reign  of  Charles  the  Second  lo 
with  regard  to  the  County  Palatine  of  Durham,  which  is 
my  fourth  example.  This  county  had  long  lain  out  of 
the  pale  of  free  legislation.  So  scrupulously  was  the 
example  of  Chester  followed  that  the  style  of  the  pre- 
amble is  nearly  the  same  with  that  of  the  Chester  Act ;  15 
and,  without  affecting  the  absti-act  extent  of  the  authority 
of  Parliament,  it  recognizes  the  equity  of  not  suffering 
any  considerable  district  in  which  the  British  subjects 
may  act  as  a  body,  to  be  taxed  without  their  own  voice 
in  the  grant.  20 

Now  if  the  doctrines  of  policy  contained  in  these  pre- 
ambles, and  the  foree  of  these  examples  in  the  Acts  of 
Parliaments,  avail  anything,  what  can  be  said  against 
applying  them  with  regard  to  America?  Are  not  the 
|)eople  of  America  as  much  Englishmen  as  the  Welsh  ?  25 
The  preamble  of  the  Act  of  Henry  the  Eighth  says  the 
Welsh  si)eak  a  language  no  way  resembling  that  of  his 
Majesty's  English  sid)jects.  Are  the  Americans  not  as 
numerous?  If  we  may  trust  the  learned  and  accurate 
Judge  Harrington's  account  of  North  Wales,  and  take  30 
that  as  a  standartl  to  measure  the  rest,  there  is  no  com- 
parison. The  people  cannot  amount  to  above  200,000 ; 
not  a  tenth  part  of  the  numlier  in  the  Colonies.  Is 
America  in  rebellion  ?  Wales  was  hanlly  ever  free 
from  it.     Have  you  attempted  to  govern  America  by  as 


48  Burke. 

penal  statutes  ?  You  made  fifteen  for  Wales.  But  your 
legislative  authority  is  perfect  with  regard  to  America. 
Was  it  less  perfect  in  Wales,  Chester,  and  Durham  ? 
But  America  is  virtually  represented.     What !  does  the 

6  electric  force  of  virtual  representation  more  easily  pass 
over  the  Atlantic  than  pervade  Wales,  which  lies  in  your 
neighborhood  —  or  than  Chester  and  Durham,  surrounded 
by  abundance  of  representation  that  is  actual  and  pal- 
pable?    But,  Sir,  your  ancestors  thought  this  sort  of 

10  virtual  representation,  however  ample,  to  be  totally 
insufficient  for  the  freedom  of  the  inhabitants  of  terri- 
tories that  are  so  near,  and  comparatively  so  inconsider- 
able. How  then  can  I  think  it  sufficient  for  those  which 
are  infinitely  greater,  and  infinitely  more  remote  ? 

16  You  will  now.  Sir,  perhaps  imagine  that  I  am  on  the 
point  of  proposing  to  you  a  scheme  for  a  representation 
of  the  Colonies  in  Parliament  Perhaps  I  might  be  in- 
clined to  entertain  some  such  thought ;  but  a  great  flood 
stops  me  in   my  course.     Opposuit   natura.  —  I  cannot 

20  remove  the  eternal  barriers  of  the  creation.  The  thing, 
in  that  mode,  I  do  not  know  to  be  possible.  As  I  meddle 
with  no  theory,  I  do  not  absolutely  assert  the  impi-acti- 
cability  of  such  a  representation ;  but  I  do  not  see  my 
way  to  it,  and  those  who  have  been  more  confident  have 

25  not  been  more  successful.  However,  the  arm  of  public 
benevolence  is  not  shortened,  and  there  are  often  several 
means  to  the  same  end.  What  nature  has  disjoined  in 
one  way,  wisdom  may  unite  in  another.  When  we  can- 
not give  the  benefit  as  we  would  wish,  let  us  not  refuse 

iiO  it  altogether.     If  we  cannot  give  the  principal,  let  us 

find  a  substitute.     But  how  ?  Where  ?  What  substitute  ? 

Fortunately  I  am  not  obliged,  for  the  ways  and  means 

of  this  substitute,  to  tax  my  own  unproductive  invention. 

I  am  not  even  obliged  to  go  to  the  rich  treasury  of  the 

35  fertile  f i*amers  of   imaginary  commonwealths  —  not  to 


Cuticilialio/i  icith  III,'  ( '  '/ontes,  49 

the  Republic  of  Plato,  not  to  the  Utopia  of  More,  not  to 
the  Oceana  of  Harrington.  It  is  before  me  —  it  is  at 
my  feet, 

"  And  the  rude  swain 
Treads  daily  on  it  with  his  clouted  sboon."  6 

I  only  wish  you  to  recognize,  for  the  theory,  the  ancient 
constitutional  policy  of  this  kingdom  with  regard  to  rep- 
resentation, as  that  policy  has  been  declared  in  Acts  of 
Parliament;  and  as  to  the  practice,  to  return  to  that 
mode  which  a  uniform  experience  has  marked  out  to  lo 
you  as  best,  and  in  which  you  walked  with  security,  ad- 
vantage, and  honor,  until  the  year  1703. 

My  Resolutions  therefore  mean  to  establish  the  equity 
and  justice  of  a  taxation  of  America  by  grant y  and  not 
by  imposition;  to  mark  the  legal  competency  of  the  15 
Colony  Assemblies  for  the  supix)rt  of  their  government 
in  peace,  and  for  public  aids  in  time  of  war;  to  ac- 
knowledge that  this  legal  competency  has  had  a  dutiful 
and  beneficial  exercise;  and  that  exiDCrience  has  shown 
the  benefit  of  their  grants^  and  the  futility  of  Parlia-  20 
mentary  taxation  as  a  method  of  supply. 

These  solid  tniths  compose  six  fundamental  proposi- 
tions. There  are  three  more  Resolutions  corollaiy  to 
these.  If  you  admit  the  first  set,  you  can  hardly  reject 
the  others.  But  if  you  admit  the  first,  I  shall  be  far  25 
from  solicitous  whether  you  accept  or  refuse  the  last.  I 
think  these  six  massive  jullars  will  l^e  of  strength  suffi- 
cient to  support  the  temple  of  British  concord.  I  have 
no  more  doubt  than  I  entertain  of  my  existence  that,  if 
you  admitted  these,  you  would  command  an  immediate  30 
peace,  and,  with  but  tolerable  future  management,  a  last- 
ing obedience  in  America.  I  am  not  arrogant  in  this  con- 
fident assurance.  The  propositions  are  all  mere  matters 
of  fact,  and  if  they  are  such  facts  as  draw  irresistible 


50  Burke, 

conclusions  even  in  the  stating,  this  is  the  power  of 
truth,  and  not  any  management  of  mine. 

Sir,  I  shall  open  the  whole  plan  to  you,  together  with 
such  observations  on  the  motions  as  may  tend  to  illustiute 
5  them  where  they  may  want  explanation.    The  first  is  a 
Resolution  — 

"  That  the  Colonies  and  Plantations  of  Great  Britain  in  North 
America,  consisting  of  fourteen  separate  (iovernment«,  and 
containing  two  millions  and  upwards  of  free  inhabitants, 
10  have  not  had  the  liberty  and  privilege  of  electing  and  send- 

ing any  Knights  and  Burgesses,  or  others,  to  represent  them 
in  the  High  Court  of  Parliament 

This  is  a  plain  matter  of  fact,  necessary  to  be  laid 
down,  and,  excepting  the  description,  it  is  laid  down  in 
15  the  language  of  the  Constitution  ;  it  is  taken  nearly  ver- 
batim  fmm  acts  of  Parliament 

The  second  is  like  unto  the  first  — 

**  That  the  said  Colonies  and  Plantations  have  been  liable  to, 
and  bounden   by,  several   subsidies,  payments,  rates,  and 

20  taxes  given  and   granted  by  Parliament,  though  the  said 

Colonies  and  Plantations  have  not  their  Knights  and  Bur- 
gesses in  the  said  High  Court  of  Parliament,  of  their  own 
election,  to  represent  the  condition  of  their  country;  by  lack 
whereof  they  have  been  oftentimes  touched  and  grieved  by 

25  subsidies  given,  granted,  and  assented  to,  in  the  said  Court, 

in  a  manner  prejudicial  to  the  commonwealth,  quietness, 
rest,  and  peace  of  the  subjects  inhabiting  within  the  same." 

Is  this  description  too  hot,  or  too  cold ;  too  strong,  or 
too  weak  ?  Does  it  arrogate  too  much  to  the  supreme 
30  legislature  ?  Does  it  lean  too  much  to  the  claims  of  the 
people  ?  If  it  runs  into  any  of  these  errors,  the  fault  is 
not  mine.  It  is  the  language  of  your  own  ancient  Acts 
of  Parliament. 

*'  Non  mens  hie  sermo,  sed  quae  praecepit  Ofellus, 
35  Rusticus,  abnormis  sapiens." 


Conciliation  mith  the  Colonies,  61 

It  is  the  genuine  produce  of  the  ancient,  rustic,  manly, 
homebred  sense  of  this  country.  —  I  did  not  dare  to  rub 
off  a  particle  of  the  venerable  rust  that  rather  adorns 
and  preserves,  than  destroys,  the  metal.  It  would  be  a 
profanation  to  touch  with  a  tool  the  stones  which  con-  fi 
stuct  the  sacred  altar  of  peace.  I  would  not  violate 
with  modern  polish  the  ingenuous  and  noble  roughness 
of  these  tnily  Constitutional  materials.  Above  all  things, 
I  was  resolved  not  to  be  guilty  of  tami)ering,  the  odious 
vice  of  restless  and  unstable  minds.  I  put  my  foot  in  lO 
the  tracks  of  our  forefathers,  where  I  can  neither  wander 
nor  stumble.  Determining  to  fix  articles  of  peace,  I  was 
resolved  not  to  be  wise  beyond  what  was  written  ;  I  was 
resolved  to  use  nothing  else  than  the  form  of  sound  words, 
to  let  others  abound  in  their  own  sense,  and  carefully  to  15 
abstain  fi-om  all  expressions  of  my  own.  What  the  law 
has  said,  1  say.  In  all  things  else  I  am  silent.  I  have 
no  organ  but  for  her  words.  This,  if  it  be  not  ingenious, 
I  am  sure  is  safe. 

There  are  indeed  words  expressive  of  grievance  in  this  20 
second  Resolution,  which  those  who  are  resolved  always 
to  be  in  the  right  will  deny  to  contain  matter  of  fact,  as 
ajjplied  to  the  present  case,  although  Parliament  thought 
them  true  with  regard  to  the  counties  of  Chester  and 
Durham.  They  will  deny  that  the  Americans  were  ever  25 
"  touched  and  grieved"  with  the  taxes.  If  they  consider 
nothing  in  taxes  but  their  weight  as  pecuniary  imjK)si- 
tions,  there  might  be  some  pretence  for  this  denial ;  but 
men  may  be  sorely  touched  and  deeply  grieved  in  their 
privileges,  as  well  as  in  their  purses.  Men  may  lose  little  30 
in  property  by  the  act  which  takes  away  all  their  freedom. 
When  a  man  is  robbed  of  a  trifle  on  the  highway,  it  is 
not  the  two-i)ence  lost  that  constitutes  the  capital  out- 
rage. This  is  not  confined  to  privileges.  Even  ancient 
indulgences,  withdmwn  without  offence  on  the  part  of  36 


52  Burke. 

those  who  enjoyed  such  favors,  operate  as  grievances. 
Hut  were  the  Americans  then  not  touched  and  grieved 
by  the  taxes,  in  some  measure,  merely  as  taxes  ?  If  so, 
why  were  they  almost  all  either  wholly  repealed,  or  ex- 
5  ceedingly  reduced  ?  Were  they  not  touched  and  grieved 
even  by  the  regulating  duties  of  the  sixth  of  George  the 
Second  ?  Else,  why  were  the  duties  first  reduced  to  one 
third  in  1764,  and  afterwards  to  a  third  of  that  third  in 
the  year  1766  ?    Were  they  not  touched  and  grieved  by 

10  the  Stamp  Act  ?  I  shall  say  they  were,  until  that  tax  is 
revived.  Were  they  not  touched  and  grieved  by  the 
duties  of  1767,  which  were  likewise  repealed,  and  which 
Lord  Hillsborough  tells  you,  for  the  Ministry,  were  laid 
conti-ary  to  the  true  principle  of  commerce  ?     Is  not  the 

16  assurance  given  by  that  noble  person  to  the  Colonies  of  a 
resolution  to  lay  no  more  taxes  on  them  an  admission 
that  taxes  would  touch  and  grieve  them  ?  Is  not  the 
Resolution  of  the  noble  loiti  in  the  blue  ribbon,  now 
standing  on   your  Journals,  the  strongest  of  all  proofs 

20  that  Parliamentary  subsidies  really  touched  and  grieved 
them  ?     Else  why  all  these  changes,  modifications,  re- 
peals, assurances,  and  resolutions  ? 
The  next  proposition  is  — 

**That,  from  the  distance  of  the  said  Colonies,  and  from  other 
25  circumstances,  no  method  hath  hitherto  been  devised  for 

procuring    a    representation    in    Parliament    for  the    said 
Colonies." 

This  is  an  assertion  of  a  fact.     I  go  no  further  on  the 

paper,  though,  in  my  private  judgment,  a  useful  repre- 

30  sentation  is  imposible  —  I  am  sure  it  is  not  desired  by 

them,  nor  ought  it  perhaps  by  us  —  but  I  abstain  from 

opinions. 

The  fourth  Resolution  is  — 
"That  each   of  the  said   Colonies  hath  within  itself  a  body, 
85  chosen  in  part,  or  in  the  whole,  by  the  freemen,  freeholders, 


k 


Conciliation  tvith  the  Colonies,  58 

or  other  free  inhabitants  thereof,  ooininonly  called  the  Gen- 
eral Assembly,  or  (ieneral  Court,  with  jwwers  legally  to 
raise,  levy,  and  assess,  according  to  the  several  usage  of 
such  Colonies,  duties  and  taxes  towards  defraying  all  sorts 
of  public  services."  6 

This  competence  in  the  Colony  Assemblies  is  certain. 
It  is  proved  by  the  whole  tenor  of  their  Acts  of  Supply 
in  all  the  Assemblies,  in  which  the  constant  style  of 
granting  is,  "  an  aid  to  his  Majesty  ;  "  and  Acts  granting 
to  the  Crown  have  regularly  for  near  a  century  ])assed  10 
the  public  offices  without  dispute.  Those  who  have  been 
pleased  paradoxically  to  deny  this  right,  holding  that 
none  but  the  British  Parliament  can  grant  to  the  Crown, 
are  wished  to  look  to  what  is  done,  not  only  in  the 
Colonies,  but  in  Ireland,  in  one  uniform  unbroken  tenor  15 
every  session.  Sir,  I  am  surprised  that  this  doctrine 
should  come  from  some  of  the  law  servants  of  the 
Crown.  I  say  that  if  the  Crown  could  be  responsible. 
His  Majesty  —  but  certainly  the  Ministers, — and  even 
these  law  officers  themselves  through  whose  hands  the  20 
Acts  passed,  biennially  in  Ireland,  or  annually  in  the 
Colonies — are  in  an  habitual  course  of  committing  im- 
peachable offences.  What  habitual  offenders  have  been 
all  Presidents  of  the  Council,  all  Secretaries  of  State,  all 
First  Lords  of  Trade,  all  Attorneys  and  all  Solicitors-  25 
Genei-al !  However,  they  are  safe,  as  no  one  impeaches 
them ;  and  there  is  no  ground  of  charge  against  them 
except  in  their  own  unfounded  theories. 

The  fifth  resolution  is  also  a  resolution  of  fact  — 

"That  the  said  General  Assemblies,  General  Courts,  or  other  30 
bodies  legally  qualified  as  aforesaid,  have  at  sundry  times 
freely  granted  several  large  subsidies  and  public  aids  for 
his  Majesty's  service,  according  to  their  abilities,  when  re- 
quired thereto  by  letter  from  one  of  his  Majesty's  principal 
Secretaries  of  State;  and  that  their  right  to  grant  the  same,  35 
and  their  cheerfulness  and  sufficiency  in  the  said  grants, 
have  been  at  sundry  times  acknowledged  by  Parliament." 


54  Burke. 

To  say  nothing  of  their  great  expenses  in  the  Indian 
ware,  and  not  to  take  their  exertion  in  foreign  ones  so 
high  as  the  supplies  in  the  year  1695  —  not  to  go  back 
to  their  public  contributions  in  the  year  1710  —  I  shall 
6  begin  to  travel  only  where  the  journals  give  me  light, 
resolving  to  deal  in  nothing  but  fact,  authenticated  by 
Parliamentary  record,  and  to  build  myself  wholly  on 
that  solid  basis. 

On  the  4th  of  April,  1748,  a  Committee  of  this  House 
10  came  to  the  following  resolution : 

**  Resolved:  That  it  is  the  opinion  of  this  Committee  that  it  is 
just  and  reasonable  that  the  several  Provinces  and  Colonies 
of  Massachusetts  Bay,  New  Hampshire,  Connecticut,  and 
Rhode  Island,  be  reimbursed  the  expenses  they  have  been 
15  at  in  taking  and  securing  to  the  Crown  of  Great  Britain 

the  Island  of  Cape  Breton  and  its  dependencies/' 

The  expenses  were  immense  for  such  Colonies.     They 
were  above  £200,000  sterling;  money  first  raised  and 
advanced  on  their  public  credit. 
20      On  the  28th  of  January,  1756,  a  message  from  the 
King  came  to  us,  to  this  effect : 

*''■  His  Majesty,  being  sensible  of  the  zeal  and  vigor  with  which 
his  faithful  subjects  of  certain  Colonies  in  North  America 
have  exerted  themselves  in  defence  of  his  Majesty's  just 
25  rights  and  possessions,  recommends  it  to  this  House  to  take 

the  same  into  their  consideration,  and  to  enable  his  Majesty 
to  give  them  such  assistance  as  may  be  a  proper  reward  and 
encouragement.^' 

On  the  3d  of  February,  1756,  the  House  came  to  a 
30  suitable  Resolution,  expressed  in  woi-ds  nearly  the  same 
as  those  of  the  message,  but  with  tha  further  addition, 
that  the  money  then  voted  was  as  an  encouragement  to 
the  Colonies  to  exert  themselves  with  vigor.  It  will  not 
be  necessary  to  go  through  all  the  testimonies  which 


your  own  ivcduI:*  iuive  given  to  the  truth  of  my  Res- 
olutions. 1  will  only  refer  you  to  the  places  in  the 
Journals : 

Vol.    xxvii.  —  10th  and  19th  May,  1757. 

Vol.  xxviii.  — Junp    1st,    1758;    April  2«)th   ami    30tli,    1759;  6 

March  2(Jth  and  'Msi,  and  April  28th,  1760; 

Jan.  9th  and  20th,  1701. 
\  .1.     xxix.  —  Jan.  22d  and  20th,  1702;  March  14th  and  17th, 

1703. 

Sir,  here  is  the  repeated  acknowledgment  of  Parlia- 10 
ment  that  the  Colonies  not  only  gave,  but  gave  to  satiety. 
This  nation  has  formally  acknowledged  two  things  :  first, 
that  the  Colonies  had  gone  beyond  their  abilities,  Parlia- 
ment having  thought  it  necessary  to  reimbui-se  tliem; 
secondly,  that  they  had  acted  legally  and  laudably  in  is 
their  grants  of  money,  and  their  maintenance  of  ti-oops, 
since  the  compensation  is  expressly  given  as  reward  and 
encoui-agement.  Reward  is  not  bestowed  for  acts  that 
are  unlawful ;  and  encouragement  is  not  held  out  to 
things  that  deserve  reprehension.  My  Resolution  there-  20 
fore  does  nothing  more  than  collect  into  one  pro}X)sition 
what  is  scattered  through  your  Journals.  I  give  you 
nothing  but  your  own ;  and  you  cannot  refuse  in  the 
gross  what  you  have  so  often  acknowledged  in  detail. 
The  admission  of  this,  which  will  be  so  honorable  to  25 
them  and  to  you,  will,  indeed,  be  mortal  to  all  the  mis- 
erable stories  by  which  the  passions  of  the  misguided 
people  have  been  engaged  in  an  unhappy  system.  The 
people  heard,  indeed,  from  the  l)eginning  of  these  dis- 
putes, one  thing  continually  dinned  in  their  ears,  that  30 
reason  and  justice  demanded  that  the  Americans,  who 
paid  no  taxes,  should  be  compelled  to  contribute.  How 
did  that  fact  of  their  paying  nothing  stand  when  the 
taxing  system  began  ?  When  Mr.  Grenville  began  to 
form  his  system  of  American  revenue,  he  stated  in  this  3S 


56  Burke. 

House  that  the  Colonies  were  then  in  debt  two  millions 
six  hundred  thousand  jwunds  sterling  money,  and  was 
of  opinion  they  would  discharge  that  debt  in  four 
years.  On  this  state,  those  untaxed  people  were  actually 
5  subject  to  the  payment  of  taxes  to  the  amount  of  six 
hundred  and  fifty  thousand  a  year.  In  fact,  however,  Mr. 
Grenville  was  mistaken.  The  funds  given  for  sinking 
the  debt  did  not  prove  quite  so  ample  as  both  the  Colo- 
nies and  he  expected.    The  calculation  was  too  sanguine ; 

10  the  reduction  was  not  completed  till  some  years  after, 
and  at  different  times  in  different  Colonies.  However, 
the  taxes  after  the  war  continued  too  great  to  bear  any 
addition,  with  prudence  or  propriety  ;  and  when  the  bur- 
thens  imposed   in   consequence  of  former  requisitions 

16  were  discharged,  our  tone  became  too  high  to  resort 
again  to  requisition.  No  Colony,  since  that  time,  ever 
has  had  any  requisition  whatsoever  made  to  it. 

We  see  the  sense  of  the  Crown,  and  the  sense  of  Par- 
liament, on  the  productive  nature  of  a  revenue  hy  grant, 

20  Now  search  the  same  Journals  for  the  produce  of  the 
revenue  by  imposition.  Where  is  it  ?  Let  us  know  the 
volume  and  the  page.  What  is  the  gross,  what  is  the 
net  produce  ?  To  what  service  is  it  applied  ?  How 
have  you  appropriated  its  surplus  ?   What !   Can  none  of 

25  the  many  skilful  index-makers  that  we  are  now  employ- 
ing find  any  trace  of  it  ?  —  Well,  let  them  and  that  rest 
together.  But  are  the  Journals,  which  say  nothing  of 
the  revenue,  as  silent  on  the  discontent  ?  Oh  no !  a 
child  may  find  it.     It  is  the  melancholy  burthen  and 

30  blot  of  every  page. 

I  think,  then,  I  am,  from  those  Journals,  justified  in 
the  sixth  and  last  Resolution,  which  is  — 

"That  it  hath  been  found  by  experience  that  the  manner  of 

granting  the  said  supplies  and  aids,  by  the  said  General 

35  Assemblies,  hath  been  more  agreeable  to  the  said  Colonies, 


Co}h-lll.itin,i     iritJt    tin-    f'"h>f,'>.'i<.  57 

and  more  bencticial  and  condurivt»  to  iiir  public  service, 
than  the  mode  of  giving  and  granting  aids  in  Parliamenl, 
to  be  raised  and  paid  in  the  said  Colonies/' 

This  makes  the  whole  of  the  fundamental  part  of  the 
plan.  The  conclusion  is  irresistible.  You  cannot  say  6 
that  you  were  driven  by  any  necessity  to  an  exercise  of 
the  utmost  rights  of  legislature.  You  cannot  assert  that 
you  took  on  yourselves  the  task  of  imposing  Colony  taxes 
from  the  want  of  another  le^al  body  that  is  competent 
to  the  purpose  of  supplying  the  exigencies  of  the  state  lO 
without  wounding  the  prejudices  of  the  people.  Neither 
is  it  tiiie  that  the  body  so  qualified,  and  having  that 
competence,  had  rfeglected  the  duty. 

The  question  now,  on  all  this  accumulated  matter,  is  : 
whether  you  will  choose  to  abide  by  a  profitable  experi-  15 
ence,  or  a  mischievous  theory ;  whether  you  choose  to 
build  on  imagination,  or  fact ;  whether  you  prefer  enjoy- 
ment, or  liope ;  satisfaction  in  your  subjects,  or  discon- 
tent? 

If  these  propositions  are  accepted,  everything  which  20   , 
has  been  made  to  enforce  a  contrary  system  must,  I  take 
it  for  granted,  fall  along  with  it.     On  that  ground,  I  have 
drawn  the  following  Resolution,  which,  when  it  comes  to 
be  moved,  will  naturally  be  divided  in  a  proper  manner : 

"  That  it  may  be  proper  to  repeal  an  Act  made  in  the  seventh  25 
year  of  the  reign  of  his  present  Majesty,  entitled,  An  Act 
for  granting  certain  duttes  in  the  British  Colonies  and  Plan- 
tations in  America;  for  allowing  a  drawback  of  the  duties 
of  customs  ui)on  the  exportation  from   this   Kingdom  of 
coflfee  and  cocoa-nuts  of  the  produce  of  the  said  Colonies  or  30 
Plantations;  for  discontinuing  the  drawbacks  payable  on 
china  earthenware    exported  to  America;    and   for  more 
effectually  preventing  the  clandestine  running  of  goods  in 
the  said  Colonies  and  Plantations.     And   that  it  may  be 
proper  to  repeal  an  Act  made  in  the  fourteenth  year  of  the  35 
reign  of  his  present  Majesty,  entitled,  An  Act  to  discon- 


58  Burke. 

tinue,  in  such  manner  and  for  such  time  as  are  therein 
mentioned,  the  landing  and  dischai^ing,  lading  or  shipping 
of  goods,  wares,  and  merchandise  at  the  town  and  within 
the  harbor  of  Boston,  in  the  Province  of  Massachusetts  Bay, 

6  in  North  America.     And  that  it  may  be  proper  to  repeal  an 

Act  made  in  the  fourteenth  year  of  the  reign  of  his  present 
Majesty,  intitled.  An  Act  for  the  impartial  administration  of 
justice  in  the  cases  of  persons  questioned  for  any  acts  done  by 
them  in  the  execution  of  the  law,  or  for  the  suppression  of 

10  riots  and  tumults,  in  the  Province  of  Massachusetts  Bay,  in 

New  England.  And  that  Jt  may  be  proper  to  repeal  an  Act 
made  in  the  fourteenth  year  of  the  reign  of  his  present  Maj- 
esty, intitled.  An  Act  for  the  better  regulating  of  the  Gov- 
ernment of  the  Province  of  the  Massachusetts  Bay,  in  New 

15  England.     And  also  that  it  may  be  proper  to  explain  and 

amend  an  Act  made  in  the  thirty-fifth  year  of  the  reign 
of  King  Henry  the  Eighth,  intitled.  An  Act  for  the  Trial  of 
Treasons  committed  out  of  the  King's  Dominions.*' 

I  wish,  Sir,  to  repeal  the  Boston  Port  Bill,  because  — 

20  independently  of  the  dangerous  precedent  of  suspending 
the  rights  of  the  subject  during  the  King's  pleasure  —  it 
was  passed,  as  I  apprehend,  with  less  regularity  and  on 
more  partial  principles  than  it  ought.  The  corporation 
of  Boston  was  not  heard  before  it  was  condemned.     Other 

25  towns,  full  as  guilty  as  she  was,  have  not  had  their  ports 
blocked  up.  Even  the  Restraining  Bill  of  the  present 
session  does  not  go  to  the  length  of  the  Boston  Port  Act. 
The  same  ideas  of  prudence  which  induced  you  not  to 
extend  equal  punishment  to  equal  guilt,  even  when  you 

30  were  punishing,  induced  me,  who  mean  not  to  chastise, 
but  to  reconcile,  to  be  satisfied  with  the  pimishment 
already  partially  inflicted. 

Ideas  of  prudence  and  accommodation  to  circumstances 
prevent  you  from  taking  away  the  charters  of  Connecti- 

35  cut  and  Rhode  Island,  as  you  have  taken  away  that  of 
Massachusetts  Bay,  though  the  Crown  has  far  less  power 
in  the  two  former  provinces  than  it  enjoyed  in  the  latter, 


Conciliation  with  the  (olonies.  59 

and  though  the  abuses  liave  been  full  as  great,  and  as 
flagrant,  in  the  exempted  as  in  the  punished.  The  same 
reasons  of  prudence  and  accommodation  have  weight  with 
me  in  restoring  the  Charter  of  Massachusetts  Bay.  Be- 
sides, Sir,  the  Act  which  changes  the  charter  of  Massa- » 
chusetts  is  in  many  particulars  so  exceptionable  that  if  I 
did  not  wish  absolutely  to  repeal,  I  would  by  all  means 
desire  to  alter  it,  as  several  of  its  provisions  tend  to  the 
subversion  of  all  public  and  private  justice.  Such, 
among  others,  is  the  power  in  the  Governor  to  change  lo 
the  sheriff  at  his  pleasure,  and  to  make  a  new  returning 
officer  for  every  special  cause.  It  is  shameful  to  behold 
such  a  regulation  standing  among  English  laws. 

The  Act  for  bringing  i)ersons  accused  of  committing 
murder,  under  the  orders  of  Grovernment  to  England  15 
for  trial,  is  but  temporary.  That  Act  has  calculated  the 
probable  dui-ation  of  our  quarrel  with  the  Colonies,  and 
is  accommodated  to  that  supposed  duration.  I  would 
hasten  the  happy  moment  of  reconciliation,  and  there- 
fore must,  on  my  principle,  get  rid  of  that  most  justly  20 
obnoxious  Act. 

The  Act  of  Henry  the  Eighth,  for  the  Trial  of  Trea- 
sons, I  do  not  mean  to  take  away,  but  to  confine  it  to  its 
proper  bounds  and  original  intention;  to  make  it  ex- 
pressly for  trial  of  treasons  —  and  the  greatest  treasons  25 
may  be  committed  —  in  places  where  the  jurisdiction  of 
the  Crown  does  not  extend. 

Having  guartled  the  privileges  of  local  legislature,  I 
would  next  secure  to  the  Colonies  a  fair  and  unbiassed 
judicature,  for  which  purpose,  Sir,  I  propose  the  follow-  30 
ing  Resolution : 

*'  That,  from  the  time  when  the  General  Assembly  or  (Jeneral 
Court  of  any  Colony  or  Plantation  in  North  America  shall 
have  appointed  by  Act  of  Assembly,  duly  confirmed,  a 
settled  salary  to  the  offices  of  the  Chief  Justice  and  other  35 


60  Burke. 

Judges  of  the  Superior  Court,  it  may  be  proper  that  the  said 
Clilef  Justice  and  other  Judges  of  the  Superior  Courts  of 
such  Colony  shall  hold  his  and  their  office  and  offices  during 
their  good  behavior,  and  shall  not  be   removed  therefrom 

r»  but  when  the  said  removal  shall  be  adjudged  by  his  Majesty 

in  Council,  upon  a  hearing  on  complaint  from  the  Greneral 
ABsembly,  or  on  a  complaint  from  the  Governor,  or  Council, 
or  the  House  of  Representatives  severally,  or  of  the  Colony 
in  which  the  said  Chief  Justice  and  other  Judges  have 

10  exercised  the  said  offices." 

The  next  Resolution  relates  to  the  Courts  of  Admi- 
ralty.    It  is  this : 

*'That  it  may  be  proper  to  regulate  the  Courts  of  Admiralty 
or  Vice-Admiralty  authorized  by  the  fifteenth  Chapter  of 
15  the  Fourth  of  George  the  Third,  in  such  a  manner  as  to 

make  the  same  more  commodious  to  those  who  sue,  or  are 
sued,  in  the  said  Courts,  and  to  provide  for  the  more  decent 
maintenance  of  the  Judges  in  the  same." 

These  courts  I  do  not  wish  to  take  away ;  they  are  in 

20  themselves  proper  establishments.  This  court  is  one  of 
the  capital  securities  of  the  Act  of  Navigation.  The 
extent  of  its  jurisdiction,  indeed,  has  been  increased,  but 
this  is  altogether  as  proper,  and  is  indeed  on  many 
accounts  more  eligible,  where  new  powers  were  wanted, 

25  than  a  court  absolutely  new.  But  courts  incommodiously 
situated,  in  effect,  deny  justice ;  and  a  court  partaking  in 
the  fruits  of  its  own  condemnation  is  a  robber.  The 
Congress  complain,  and  complain  justly,  of  this  griev- 
ance. 

30  These  are  the  three  consequential  propositions.  I 
have  thought  of  two  or  three  more,  but  they  come  rather 
too  near  detail,  and  to  the  province  of  executive  govern- 
ment, which  I  wish  Parliament  always  to  superintend, 
never  to  assume.     If  the  first  six  are  granted,  congruity 

35  will  carry  the   latter   three.     If  not,   the   things  that 


Conciliation  with  the  Colonies,  61 

lomain  unrepealed  will  be,  I  hope,  rather  unseemly 
incumbrances  on  the  building,  than  very  materially 
detrimental  to  its  strength  and  stability. 

Here,  Sir,  I  should  close ;  but  I  plainly  perceive  some 

objections  remain  which  I  ought,  if  possible,  to  remove.  6 
The  first  will  be  that,  in  resorting  to  the  doctrine  of  our 
ancestors,  as  contained  in  the  preamble  to  the  Chester 
Act,  I  prove  too  much ;  that  the  grievance  from  a  want 
of  representation,  stated  in  that  preamble,  goes  to  the 
whole  of  legislation  as  well  as  to  taxation ;  and  that  the  10 
Colonies,  grounding  themselves  upon  that  doctrine,  will 
apply  it  to  all  parts  of  legislative  authority. 

To  this  objection,  Avith  all  possible  deference  and 
humility,  and  wishing  as  little  as  any  man  living  to 
impair  the  smallest  particle  of  our  supreme  authority,  I  15 
answer,  that  the  words  are  the  words  of  Parliament,  and 
not  mine,  and  that  all  false  and  inconclusive  inferences 
drawn  from  them  are  not  mine,  for  I  heartily  disclaim 
any  such  inference.  I  have  chosen  the  words  of  an  Act 
of  Parliament  which  Mr.  Grcnville,  surely  a  tolerably  'M 
zealous  and  very  judicious  advocate  for  the  sovereignty 
of  Parliament,  formerly  moved  to  have  read  at  your 
table  in  confirmation  of  his  tenets.  It  is  true  that 
Lord  Chatham  considered  these  preambles  as  declaring 

t  rongly  in  favor  of  his  opinions.  He  was  a  no  less  25 
powerful  advocate  for  the  privileges  of  the  Americans. 
Ought  I  not  from  hence  to  presume  that  these  preambles 
are  as  favorable  as  possible  to  both,  when  properly  under- 
stood ;  favorable  both  to  the  rights  of  Parliament,  and  to 
the  privilege  of  the  dependencies  of  this  Crown?  But,  30 
Sir,  the  object  of  grievance  in  my  Resolution  I  have  not 
taken  from  the  Chester,  but  from  the  Durham  Act,  which 

onfines  the  hardship  of  want  of  representation  to  the 
.  ase  of  subsidies,  and  which  therefore  falls  in  exactly 
with  the  case  of  the  Colonies.     But  whether  the  unrep-  35 


62  Burke, 

resented  counties  were  dejiire  or  de  facto  bound,  the  pre- 
ambles do  not  accui-ately  distinguish,  nor  indeed  was  it 
necessary ;  for,  whether  de  jure  or  de  facto,  the  Legisla- 
ture thought  the  exercise  of  the  power  of  taxing  as  of 

5  right,  or  as  of  fact  without  right,  equally  a  grievance, 
and  equally  oppressive. 

I  do  not  know  that  the  Colonies  have,  in  any  general 
way,  or  in  any  cool  hour,  gone  much  beyond  the  demand 
of  humanity  in  relation  to  taxes.     It  is  not  fair  to  judge 

10  of  the  temper  or  dispositions  of  any  man,  or  any  set  of 
men,  when  they  are  composed  and  at  rest,  from  their 
conduct  or  their  expressions  in  a  state  of  disturbance  and 
irritation.  It  is  besides  a  very  great  mistake  to  imagine 
that  mankind  follow  up  practically  any  speculative  prin- 

ir>  ciple,  either  of  government  or  of  freedom,  as  far  as  it 
will  go  in  argument  and  logical  illation.  We  English- 
men stop  very  short  of  the  principles  upon  which  we 
support  any  given  part  of  our  Constitution,  or  even  the 
whole  of  it  together.     I  could  easily,  if  I  had  not  already 

20  tired  you,  give  you  very  striking  and  convincing  instances 
of  it.  This  is  nothing  but  what  is  natural  and  proi)er. 
All  government,  indeed  every  human  benefit  and  enjoy- 
ment, evety  virtue,  and  every  prudent  act,  is  founded  on 
compromise  and  barter.     We  balance  inconveniences ;  we 

25  give  and  take  ;  we  remit  some  rights,  that  we  may  enjoy 
others ;  and  we  choose  rather  to  be  happy  citizens  than 
subtle  disputants.  As  we  must  give  away  some  natural 
liberty  to  enjoy  civil  advantages,  so  we  must  sacrifice 
some  civil  liberties  for  the  advantages  to  be  derived  from 

30  the  communion  and  fellowship  of  a  great  empire.  But, 
in  all  fair  dealings,  the  thing  bought  must  bear  some  pro- 
portion to  the  purchase  paid.  None  will  barter  away  the 
immediate  jewel  of  his  soul.  Though  a  great  house  is 
apt  to  make  slaves  haughty,  yet  it  is  purchasing  a  part 

35  of  the  artificial  importance  of  a  great  empire  too  dear  to 


Conciliation  with  the  Colonies,  63 

pay  for  it  all  essential  rights  and  all  the  intrinsic  dig- 
nity of  human  nature.     None  of  us  who  would  not  risk 
his  life  rather  than  fall  under  a  government  purely  arbi-. 
trary.     But  although  there  are  some  amongst  us  who 
think   our  Constitution   wants   many   improvements  to  6 
make  it  a  complete  system  of  liberty,  perhaps  none  who 
are  of  that  opinion  would  think  it  right  to  aim  at  such 
improvement   by   disturbing   his   country,   and    risking 
everything    that    is  dear  to   him.      In  every  arduous 
enterj)rise  we  consider  what  we  are  to  lose,  as  well  as  10 
what  we  are  to  gain ;  and  the  more  and  better  stake  of 
liberty  every  people  possess,  the  less  they  will  hazard  in 
a  vain  attempt  to  make  it  more.     These  are  the  cords  of 
man.     Man  acts  from  adequate  motives  relative  to  his 
interest,  and  not  on  metaphysical   speculations.     Aris- 15 
totle,  the  great  master  of  reasoning,  cautions  us,  and 
with  great  weight  and  propriety,  against  this  species  of 
delusive  geometrical  accuracy  in  moral  arguments  as  the 
most  fallacious  of  all  sophistry. 

The  Americans  will  have  no  interest  contrary  to  the  20 
grandeur  and  glory  of  England,  when  they  are  not  op- 
pressed  by  the  weight  of  it ;  and   they  will  rather  be 
inclined  to  respect  the  acts  of  a  superintending  legisla- 
ture when  they  see  them  the  acts  of  that  power  which 
is  itself  the  security,  not  the  rival,  of  their  secondary  25 
imiK)rtance.      In  this  assurance  my  mind  most  perfectly 
acquiesces,  and  I  confess  I  feel  not  the  least  alarm  from 
the  discontents  which  are  to  arise  from  jmtting  i)eople 
at  their  ease,  nor  do  I  apprehend  the  destruction  of  this 
Empire  from  giving,  by  an  act  of  free  grace  and  indul-  ao 
gence,  to  two  millions  of  my  fellow-citizens  some  shai-e 
of  those  rights  ujKjn  which  1  have  always  been  taught  to 
value  myself. 

It  is  said,  indetMl,  tliat  this  ]K)wer  of  i;r.intiug,  vesttnl 
in  American  Assemblies,  would  dissolve  the  unity  of  the  as 


64  Burke, 

Empire,  which  was  preserved  entire,  although  Wales, 

and  Chester,  and  Durham  were  added  to  it.     Truly,  Mr. 

.  Speaker,  I  do  not  know  what  this  unity  means,  nor  has 

it  ever  been  heard  of,  that  I  know,  in  the  constitutional 

5  policy  of  this  country.  The  very  idea  of  subordination 
of  parts  excludes  this  notion  of  simple  and  undivided 
unity.  England  is  the  head;  but  she  is  not  the  head 
and  the  members  too.  Ireland  has  ever  had  from  the 
beginning  a  separate,  but  not  an  independent,  legisla- 

10  ture,  which,  far  from  distracting,  promoted  the  union  of 
the  whole.  Everything  was  sweetly  and  harmoniously 
disposed  through  both  islands  for  the  conservation  of 
English  dominion,  and  the  communication  of  English 
liberties.     I  do  not  see  that  the  same  principles  might 

16  not  be  carried  into  twenty  islands  and  with  the  same 
good  effect.  This  is  my  model  with  regard  to  America, 
as  far  as  the  internal  cireiunstances  of  the  two  countries 
are  the  same.  I  know  no  other  unity  of  this  Empire 
than  I  can  draw  from  its  example  during  these  periods, 

20  when  it  seemed  to  my  poor  understanding  more  united 
than  it  is  now,  or  than  it  is  likely  to  be  by  the  pres- 
ent methods. 

But  since  I  speak  of  these  methods,  I  recollect,  Mr. 
Speaker,  almost  too  late,  that  I  promised,  before  I  fin- 

25  ished,  to  say  something  of  the  proposition  of  the  nobie 
lord  on  the  floor,  which  has  been  so  lately  received  and 
stands  on  your  Journals.  I  must  be  deeply  concerned 
whenever  it  is  my  misfortune  to  continue  a  difference 
with  the  majority  of  this  House ;  but  as  the  reasons  for 

30  that  difference  are  my  apology  for  thus  troubling  you, 
suffer  me  to  state  them  in  a  very  few  words.  I  shall 
compress  them  into  as  small  a  body  as  I  possibly  can, 
having  already  debated  that  matter  at  large  when  the 
question  was  before  the  Committee. 

35      First,  then,  I  cannot  admit  that  proposition  of  a  ran- 


Conciliation  with  the  Colonies.  -  65 

som  by  auction ;  because  it  is  a  mere  project.  It  is  a 
thing  new,  unheard  of;  supported  by  no  experience; 
justified  by  no  analogy;  without  example  of  our  ances- 
tors, or  root  in  the  Constitution.  It  is  neither  regular 
Parliamentary  taxation,  nor  Colony  grant.  Experimeri-  5 
turn  in  corpore  vili  is  a  good  rule,  which  will  ever  make 
me  adverse  to  any  trial  of  experiments  on  what  is  cer- 
tainly the  most  valuable  of  all  subjects,  the  peace  of  this 
Empire. 

Secondly,  it  is  an  experiment  which  must  be  fatal  in  10 
the  end  to  our  Constitution.     For  what  is  it  but  a  scheme 
for  taxing  the  Colonies  in  the  ante-chamber  of  the  noble 
lord  and  his  successors  ?     To  settle  the  quotas  and  pro- 
portions in  this  House  is  clearly  impossible.     You,  Sir, 
may  flatter  yourself  you  shall  sit  a  state  auctioneer,  with  15 
your  hammer  in  your  hand,  and  knock  down  to  each  Col- 
ony as  it  bids.     But  to  settle,  on  the4)lan  laid  down  by  the 
noble  lord,  the  true  proportional  payment  for  four  or  five 
and  twenty  governments  according  to  the  absolute  and 
the  relative  wealth  of  each,  and  according  to  the  British  20 
proportion  of  wealth  and  burthen,  is  a  wild  and  chimer- 
ical notion.     This  new  taxation  must  therefore  come  in 
by  the  back  door  of  the  Constitution.     Each  quota  must 
be  brought  to  this  House  ready  formed  ;  you  can  neither 
add  nor  alter.     You  must  register  it.     You  can  do  noth-  26 
ing  further;  for  on  what  grounds   can  you   deliberate 
either  before  or  after  the  proposition  ?     You  cannot  hear 
the  counsel  for  all  these  provinces,  quarrelling  each  on 
its  own  quantity  of  jjayment,  and  its  proportion  to  others. 
If  you  should  attempt  it,  the  Committee  of  Provincial  30 
Ways  and  Means,  or  by  whatever  other  name  it  will  de- 
light to  be  called,  must  swallow  up  all  the  time  of  Par- 
liament. 

Thirdly,  it  does  not  give  satisfaction  to  the  complaint 
of  the  Colonies.    They  complain  that  they  are  taxed  85 


Q^  Burke, 

without  their  consent ;  you  answer,  that  you  will  fix  the 
sum  at  which  they  shall  be  taxed.  That  is,  you  give 
them  the  very  grievance  for  the  remedy.  You  tell  them, 
indeed,  that  you  will  leave  the  mode  to  themselves.     I 

5  really  beg  pardon  —  it  gives  me  pain  to  mention  it  — 
but  you  must  be  sensible  that  you  will  not  perform  this 
part  of  the  compact.  For,  suppose  the  Colonies  were  to 
lay  the  duties,  which  furnished  their  contingent,  upon 
the  imiK)rtation  of  your  manufactures,  you  know  you 

10  would  never  suffer  such  a  tax  to  be  laid.  You  know, 
too,  that  you  would  not  suffer  many  other  modes  of  taxa- 
tion ;  so  that,  when  you  come  to  explain  yourself,  it  will 
be  found  that  you  will  neither  leave  to  themselves  the 
quantum  nor  the  mode,  nor  indeed  anything.     The  whole 

16  is  delusion  from  one  end  to  the  other. 

Fourthly,  this  method  of  ransom  by  auction,  unless  it 
be  universally  accepted,  will  plunge  you  into  great  and 
inextricable  difficulties.  In  what  year  of  our  Lord  are 
the  proiX)rtions   of  payments  to  be  settled  ?    To  say 

20  nothing  of  the  impossibility  that  Colony  agents  should 
have  general  powers  of  taxing  the  Colonies  at  their  dis- 
cretion, consider,  I  implore  you,  that  the  communication 
by  special  messages  and  orders  between  these  agents  and 
their  constituents,  on  each  variation  of  the  case,  when 

25  the  parties  come  to  contend  together  and  to  dispute  on 
their  relative  proportions,  will  be  a  matter  of  delay,  per- 
plexity, and  confusion  that  never  can  have  an  end. 

If  all  the  Colonies  do  not  api>ear  at  the  outcry,  what 
is  the  condition  of  those  assemblies  who  offer,  by  them- 

30  selves  or  their  agents,  to  tax  themselves  up  to  your  ideas 
of  their  proportion  ?  The  refractory  Colonies  who  refuse 
all  composition  will  remain  taxed  only  to  your  old  im- 
positions, which,  however  grievous  in  principle,  are  tri- 
fling as  to  production.     The  obedient   Colonies  in  this 

35  scheme   are   heavily  taxed ;    the  refractory  remain  un- 


Couiiliation   tvitJi  the  Colonies.  67 

burdened.  What  will  you  do  ?  Will  you  lay  new  and 
heavier  taxes  by  Parliament  on  the  disobedient  ?  Pray 
consider  in  what  way  you  can  do  it.  You  are  perfectly 
convinced  that,  in  the  way  of  taxing,  you  can  do  nothing 
but  at  the  ports.  Now  suppose  it  is  Virginia  that  refuses  5 
to  appear  at  your  auction,  while  Maryland  and  North 
Carolina  bid  handsomely  for  their  ransom,  and  are  taxed 
to  your  quota,  how  will  you  put  these  Colonies  on  a  par  ? 
Will  you  tax  the  tobacco  of  Virginia  ?  If  you  do,  you 
give  its  death-wound  to  your  English  revenue  at  home,  10 
and  to  one  of  the  very  greatest  articles  of  your  own 
foreign  trade.  If  you  tax  the  im|X)rt  of  that  rebellious 
Colony,  what  do  you  tax  but  your  own  manufactures,  or 
the  goods  of  some  other  obedient  and  already  well-taxed 
Colony  ?  Who  has  said  one  word  on  this  labyrinth  of  15 
detail,  which  bewilders  you  more  and  more  as  you  enter 
into  it  ?  "Who  has  presented,  who  can  present  you  with 
a  clue  to  lead  you  out  of  it  ?  I  think.  Sir,  it  is  impos- 
sible that  you  should  not  recollect  that  the  Colony 
bounds  are  so  implicated  in  one  another  —  you  know  it  20 
by  your  other  experiments  in  the  bill  for  prohibiting  the 
New  England  fishery, — that  you  can  lay  no  possible 
restraints  on  almost  any  of  them  which  may  not  be 
presently  eluded,  if  you  do  not  confound  the  innocent 
with  the  guilty,  and  burthen  those  whom,  upon  every  25 
principle,  you  ought  to  exonerate.  He  must  be  grossly 
ignorant  of  America  who  thinks  that,  without  falling 
into  this  confusion  of  all  rules  of  equity  and  policy,  you 
04111  restrain  any  single  Colony,  especially  Virginia  and 
Maryland,  the  central  and  most  important  of  them  all.       ao 

Let  it  also  ho  considered  that,  either  in  the  present 
confusion  you  settle  a  permanent  contingent,  which  will 
and  must  be  trifling,  and  then  you  have  no  effectual 
n»venue;  or  you  change  the  quota  at  every  exigency, 
md  then  on  every  new  repartition  you  will  have  a  new  85 
quarrel. 


68  Burke. 

Reflect,  besides,  that  when  you  have  fixed  a  quota  for 
every  Colony,  you  have  not  provided  for  prompt  and 
punctual  payment.  Suppose  one,  two,  five,  ten  years' 
arrears.  You  cannot  issue  a  Treasury  Extent  against 
5  the  failing  Colony.  You  must  make  new  Boston  Port 
Bills,  new  restraining  laws,  new  acts  for  dragging  men 
to  England  for  trial.  You  must  send  out  new  fleets, 
new  armies.  All  is  to  begin  again.  From  this  day 
forward  the  Empire  is  never  to  know  an  hour's  tran- 

10  quillity.  An  intestine  fire  will  be  kept  alive  in  the 
bowels  of  the  Colonies,  which  one  time  or  other  must 
consume  this  whole  Empire.  I  allow  indeed  that  the 
empire  of  Germany  raises  her  revenue  and  her  troops  by 
quotas  and  contingents ;  but  the  revenue  of  the  empire, 

15  and  the  army  of  the  empire,  is  the  worst  revenue  and 
the  worst  army  in  the  world. 

Instead  of  a  standing  revenue,  you  will  therefore  have 
a  perpetual  quarrel.  Indeed,  the  noble  lord  who  pro- 
posed this  project  of  a  ransom  by  auction  seems  himself 

20  to  be  of  that  opinion.  His  project  was  rather  designed 
for  breaking  the  union  of  the  Colonies  than  for  establish- 
ing a  revenue.  He  confessed  he  apprehended  that  his 
proposal  would  not  be  to  their  taste.  I  say  this  scheme 
of  disunion  seems  to  be  at  the  bottom  of  the  project ;  for 

25  I  will  not  suspect  that  the  noble  lord  meant  nothing  but 
merely  to  delude  the  nation  by  an  airy  phantom  which 
he  never  intended  to  realize.  But  whatever  his  views 
may  be,  as  I  propose  the  peace  and  union  of  the  Colonies 
as  the  very  foundation  of  my  plan,  it  cannot  accord  with 

30  one  whose  foundation  is  perpetual  discord. 

Compare  the  two.  This  I  offer  to  give  you  is  plain 
and  simple.  The  other  full  of  perplexed  and  intricate 
mazes.  This  is  mild ;  that  harsh.  This  is  found  by  ex- 
perience effectual  for  its  purposes ;   the  other  is  a  new 

35  project.     This  is  universal  -,  the  other  calculated  for  cer- 


Conciliation  with  the  Colonies.  69 

tain  Colonies  only.  Tln^  i^  im mediate  in  its  conciliatory 
operation ;  the  other  remote,  contingent,  full  of  hazard. 
Mine  is  what  becomes  the  dignity  of  a  ruling  people  — 
gratuitous,  unconditional,  and  not  held  out  as  a  matter  of 
bargain  and  sale.  I  have  done  my  duty  in  proposing  it  6 
to  you.  I  have  indeed  tired  you  by  a  long  discourse ; 
but  this  is  the  misfortune  of  those  to  whose  influence 
nothing  w^ill  be  conceded,  and  who  must  win  every  inch 
of  their  ground  by  argument.  You  have  heard  me  with 
goodness.  May  you  decide  with  wisdom  !  For  my  part,  10 
1  feel  my  mind  greatly  disburthened  by  what  I  have 
done  to-day.  I  have  been  the  less  fearful  of  trying  your 
jmtience,  because  on  this  subject  I  mean  to  spare  it  alto- 
gether in  future.  I  have  this  comfort,  that  in  every  stage 
of  the  American  affairs  I  have  steadily  opposed  the  meas- 15 
ures  that  have  produced  the  confusion,  and  may  bring  on 
the  destruction,  of  this  Empire.  I  now  go  so  far  as  to 
risk  a  proposal  of  my  own.  If  I  cannot  give  peace  to 
my  country,  I  give  it  to  my  conscience. 

But  what,  says  the  financier,  is  peace  to  us  without  20 
money  ?  Your  plan  gives  us  no  revenue.  No !  But  it 
does  ;  for  it  secures  to  the  subject  the  power  of  refusal, 
tlic  first  of  all  revenues.  Experience  is  a  cheat,  and  fact 
a  liar,  if  this  power  in  the  subject  of  proportioning  his 
grant,  or  of  not  granting  at  all,  has  not  been  found  the  26 
richest  mine  of  revenue  ever  discovered  by  the  skill  or 
by  the  fortune  of  man.  It  does  not  indeed  vote  you 
152,750/.  lis.  2jrf.,  nor  any  other  paltry  limited  sum; 
but  it  gives  the  strong  box  itself,  the  fund,  the  bank  — 
from  whence  only  revenues  can  arise  amongst  a  people  30 
sensible  of  freedom.  Fosita  luditur  area.  Cannot  you, 
in  England  —  cannot  you,  at  this  time  of  day  —  cannot  you, 
a  House  of  Commons,  trust  to  the  principle  which  has 
raised  so  mighty  a  revenue,  and  accumulated  a  debt  of 
near  140,000,000  in  this  country  ?    Is  this  principle  to  35 


70  Burke. 

be  true  in  England,  and  false  everywhere  else  ?  Is  it 
not  true  in  Ireland  ?  Has  it  not  hitherto  been  true  in 
the  Colonies  ?  Why  should  you  presume  that,  in  any 
country,  a  body  duly  constituted  for  any  function  will 
5  neglect  to  perform  its  duty  and  abdicate  its  trust  ?  Such 
a  presumption  would  go  against  all  governments  in  all 
modes.  But,  in  ti-uth,  this  dread  of  i)enury  of  supply 
from  a  free  assembly  has  no  foundation  in  nature ;  for 
first,  observe  that,  besides  the  desii-e  which  all  men  have 

10  naturally  of  supporting  the  honor  of  their  own  govern- 
ment, that  sense  of  dignity  and  that  security  to  property 
which  ever  attends  freedom  has  a  tendency  to  increase 
the  stock  of  the  free  community.  Most  may  be  taken 
where  most  is  accumulated.    And  what  is  the  soil  or 

15  climate  where  experience  has  not  uniformly  proved  that 
the  voluntary  flow  of  heai)ed-up  i)lenty,  bursting  from 
the  weight  of  its  own  rich  luxuriance,  has  ever  run  with 
a  more  copious  stream  of  revenue  than  could  be  squeezed 
from  the  dry  husks  of  oppressed  indigence  by  the  strain- 

20  ing  of  all  the  politic  machinery  in  the  world  ?     A 

Next,  we  know  that  parties  must  ever  exist  in  a  f  re5 
country.  We  know,  too,  that  the  emulations  of  such 
parties  —  their  contradictions,  their  reciprocal  necessi- 
ties, their  hopes,  and  their  fears  —  must  send  them  all 

25  in  their  turns  to  him  that  holds  the  balance  of  the  State. 
The  jmrties  are  the  gamesters ;  but  Government  keeps 
the  table,  and  is  sure  to  be  the  winner  in  the  end.  When 
this  game  is  played,  I  really  think  it  is  more  to  be  feared 
that  the  j:>eople  will  be  exhausted,  than  that  government 

30  will  not  be  supplied ;  whereas,  whatever  is  got  by  acts 
of  absolute  power  ill  obeyed,  because  odious,  or  by  con- 
tracts ill  kept,  because  constrained,  will  be  narrow,  feeble, 
uncertain,  and  precarious. 

"  Ease  would  retract 
35  Vows  made  in  pain,  as  violent  and  void." 


Coiir'lJdtlon    /"ifh    (he   dthmirs.  71 

1,   1(M"  «MU',    itr(Mr>i    .ij^,uii>i   ii  ijw|»i  Miiniilig    (Mil      tiriiialm.s. 

I  declaie  against  c()miK)iiiuliiig,  for  a  \yoov  limited  sura, 
the  immense,  ever-growing,  eternal  debt  which  is  due  to 
generous  government  from  protected  freedom.  And  so 
may  I  speed  in  the  great  object  I  propose  to  you,  as  I  5 
tliink  it  would  not  only  be  an  act  of  injustice,  but  would 
he  the  worst  economy  in  the  world,  to  compel  the  Colo- 
nies to  a  sum  certain,  either  in  the  way  of  ransom  or  in 
the  way  of  compulsory  compact. 

But  to  clear  up  my  ideas  on  this  subject :  a  revenue  10 
from  America  transmitted  hither  —  do  not  delude  your- 
selves—  you  never  can  receive  it;  no,  not  a  shilling. 
We  have  experience  that  from  remote  countries  it  is  not 
to  l)e  expected.     If,  when  you  attempted  to  extract  reve- 
nue from  l^engal,  you  were  obliged  to  return  in  loan  what  15 
you  had  taken  in  imposition,  what  can  you  expect  from  . 
North  America?     For  certainly,  if  ever  there   was  a 
(Country  qualified  to  produce  wealth,  it  is  India ;  or  an 
institution  fit  for  the  transmission,  it  is  the  East  India 
Company.     America  has  none  of  these  aptitudes.     If  20 
America  gives  you  taxable  objects  on  which  you  lay  your 
duties  here,  and  gives  you,  at  the  same  time,  a  surplus 
by  a  foreign  sale  of  her  commodities  to  pay  the  duties 
on  these  objects  which  you  tax  at  home,  she  has  per- 
formed her  i)art  to  the  British  revenue.     But  with  regai-d  26 
to  her  own  internal  establishments,  she  may,  I  doubt  not 
she  will,  contribute  in  moderation.     I  say  in  moderation, 
lor  she  ought  not  to  be  permitted  to  exhaust  herself. 
She  ought  to  be  reserved  to  a  war,  the  weight  of  which, 
with  the  enemies  that  we  are  most  likely  to  have,  must  30 
be  considerable  in  her  quarter  of  the  globe.     There  she 
may  serve  you,  and  serve  you  essentially. 

For  that  service  —  for  all  service,  whether  of  revenue, 
ti-ade,  or  empire  —  my  trust  is  in  her  interest  in  the 
British  Constitution.    My  hold  of  the  Colonies  is  in  the  35 


72  Burke, 

close  affection  which  grows  from  common  names,  from 
kindred  blood,  from  similar  privileges,  and  equal  pro- 
tection. These  are  ties  which,  though  light  as  air,  are 
as  strong  as  links  of  iron.  Let  the  Colonists  always  keep 
5  the  idea  of  their  civil  rights  associated  with  your  gov- 
ernment, —  they  will  cling  and  grapple  to  you,  and  no 
force  under  heaven  will  be  of  power  to  tear  them  from 
their  allegiance.  But  let  it  be  once  understood  that  your 
government    may   be  one    thing,   and    their  privileges 

10  another,  that  these  two  things  may  exist  without  any 
mutual  relation,  the  cement  is  gone  —  the  cohesion  is 
loosened  —  and  everything  hastens  to  decay  and  disso- 
lution. As  long  as  you  have  the  wisdom  to  keep  the 
sovereign  authority  of  this  country  as  the  sanctuary  of 

15  liberty,  the  sacred  temple  consecrated  to  our  common 
faith,  wherever  the  chosen  race  and  sons  of  England 
worship  freedom,  they  will  turn  their  faces  towards  you. 
The  more  they  multiply,  the  more  friends  you  will  have ; 
the  more  ardently  they  love  liberty,  the  more  perfect 

20  will  be  their  obedience.  Slavery  they  can  have  any- 
where —  it  is  a  weed  that  grows  in  every  soil.  They 
may  have  it  from  Spain ;  they  may  have  it  from  Prussia. 
But,  until  you  become  lost  to  all  feeling  of  your  true  in- 
terest and  your  natural  dignity,  freedom  they  can  have 

25  from  none  but  you.  This  is  the  commodity  of  price  of 
which  you  have  the  monopoly.  This  is  the  true  Act  of 
Navigation  which  binds  to  you  the  commerce  of  the  Col- 
onies, and  through  them  secures  to  you  the  wealth  of 
the  world.     Deny  them  this  participation  of  freedom, 

30  and  you  break  that  sole  bond  which  originally  made,  and 
must  still  preserve,  the  unity  of  the  Empire.  Do  not 
entertain  so  weak  an  imagination  as  that  your  registers 
and  your  bonds,  your  affidavits  and  your  suffei-ances, 
your  cockets  and  your  clearances,  are  what  form  the 

35  great  securities  of  your  commerce.     Do  not  dream  that 


Conciliation  with  the  Colonies,  73 

your  letters  of  office,  and  your  instructions,  and  your 
suspending  clauses,  are  the  things  that  hold  together  the 
preat  contexture  of  the  mysterious  whole.  These  things 
do  not  make  your  government.  Dead  instruments,  pas- 
sive tools  as  they  are,  it  is  the  spirit  of  the  English  com-  5 
munion  that  gives  all  their  life  and  efficacy  to  them.  It 
is  the  spirit  of  the  English  Constitution  which,  infused 
through  the  mighty  mass,  pervades,  feeds,  unites,  invig- 
orates, vivifies  evefy  part  of  the  Empire,  even  down  to 
the  minutest  member.  10 

Is  it  not  the  same  virtue  which  does  everything  for  us 
here  in  England  ?  Do  you  imagine,  then,  that  it  is  the 
Land  Tax  Act  which  raises  your  revenue  ?  that  it  is  the 
annual  vote  in  the  Committee  of  Supply  which  gives  you 
your  army  ?  or  that  it  is  the  Mutiny  Bill  which  inspires  15 
it  with  bravery  and  discipline  ?  No !  surely  no  !  It  is 
the  love  of  the  i^eople ;  it  is  their  attachment  to  their 
government,  from  the  sense  of  the  deep  stake  they  have 
in  such  a  glorious  institution,  which  gives  you  your  army 
and  your  navy,  and  infuses  into  both  that  liberal  obedi-  20 
ence  without  which  your  army  would  be  a  base  rabble, 
and  your  navy  nothing  but  rotten  timber. 

All  this,  I  know  well  enough,  will  sound  wild  and 
chimerical  to  the  profane  herd  of  those  vulgar  and  me- 
chanical politicians  who  have  no  place  among  us ;  a  sort  25 
of  people  who  think  that  nothing  exists  but  what  is  gross 
and  material,  and  who,  therefore,  far  from  being  qualified 
to  be  directors  of  the  great  movement  of  empire,  are  not 
tit  to  turn  a  wheel  in  the  machine.  But  to  men  truly 
initiated  and  rightly  taught,  these  ruling  and  master  30 
principles  which,  in  the  opinion  of  such  men  as  I  have 
mentioned,  have  no  substantial  existence,  are  in  truth 
everything,  and  all  in  all.  Magnanimity  in  politics  is 
not  seldom  the  truest  wisdom ;  and  a  great  empire  and 
little  minds  po  ill  tnn;othor.     If  we  are  conscious  of  our  35 


7 -I  Burke, 

station,  and  glow  with  zeal  to  fill  our  places  as  becomes 
our  situation  and  ourselves,  we  ought  to  auspicate  all  our 
public  proceedings  on  America  with  the  old  warning  of 
the  church,  Sursum  corda  /     We  ought  to  elevate  our 

5  minds  to  the  greatness  of  that  trust  to  which  the  order 
of  providence  has  called  us.  By  adverting  to  the  dignity 
of  this  high  calling  our  ancestors  have  turned  a  savage 
wilderness  into  a  glorious  empire,  and  have  made  the 
most  extensive  and  the  only  honoiuble  conquests  —  not 

10  by  destroying,  but  by  promoting  the  wealth,  the  number, 
the  happiness,  of  the  human  race.  Let  us  get  an  Ameri- 
can revenue  as  we  have  got  an  American  empire.  Eng- 
lish privileges  have  made  it  all  that  it  is;  English 
privileges  alone  will  make  it  all  it  can  be. 

15  In  full  confidence  of  this  unalterable  truth,  I  now,  quod 
felix  faustumque  sit,  lay  the  first  stone  of  the  Temple  of 
Peace;  and  I  move  ytu  — 

"  Tliat  the  Colonies  and  Plantations  of  Great  Britain  in  North 
America,  consisting  of  fourteen  separate  governments,  and 
20  containing  two  millions  and  upwards  of  free  inhabitants, 

have  not  had  the  liberty  and  privilege  of  electing  and  send- 
ing any  Knights  and  Burgesses,  or  others,  to  represent  them 
in  the  High  Court  of  Parliament." 


LORD  CHATHAM. 


ON  AN    ADDRESS  TO  THE  THRONE  CONCERNING  AFFAIRS  IN 
AMERICA.       HOUSE   OF    LORDS,    NOVEMBER    18,  1777. 


I  RISE,  my  Lords,  to  declare  my  sentiments  on  this 
most  solemn  and  serious  subject.  It  has  imposed  a  load 
upon  my  mind  which  I  fear  nothing  can  remove,  but 
which  impels  me  to  endeavor  its  alleviation  by  a  free 
and  unreserved  communication  of  my  seiltiments.  6 

In  the  first  part  of  the  Address  I  have  the  honor  of 
lieartily  concurring  with  the  noble  Earl  who  moved  it. 
\o  man  feels  sincerer  joy  than  I  do  —  none  can  offer 
more  genuine  congratulations  —  on  every  accession  of 
strength  to  the  Protestant  succession.  I  therefore  join  lo 
in  every  congratulation  on  the  birth  of  another  Princess, 
;ind  the  happy  recovery  of  her  Majesty. 

But  I  must  stop  here.  My  courtly  complaisance  will 
<  arry  me  no  farther.     I  will  not  join  in  congratulation 

n  misfortune  and  disgrace.     I  cannot  concur  in  a  blind  15 
md  servile  Address  which  approves,  and  endeavors  to 

anctify,  the  monstrous  measures  which  have  heaped 
disgrace  and  misfortune  ujwn  us.  This,  my  Lords,  is  a 
jterilous  and  tremendous  moment!  It  is  not  a  time  for 
adulation.  The  smoothness  of  flattery  cannot  now  avail  2C 
—  cannot  save  us  in  this  rugged  and  awful  crisis.  It  is 
now  necessary  to  instruct  the  Throne  in  the  language  of 
trutli.     We  must  dispel  the  illusion  and  the  darkness 

75 


76  Chatham. 

which  envelop  it,  and  display,  in  its  full  danger  and  true 
colors,  the  ruin  that  is  brought  to  our  doors. 

This,  ray  Lords,  is  our  duty.  .  It  is  the  proper  function 
of  this  noble  assembly,  sitting,  as  we  do,  upon  our  honors 
5  in  this  House,  the  hereditary  council  of  the  Crown.  Who 
is  the  Minister  —  where  is  the  Minister,  that  has  dared 
to  suggest  to  the  Throne  the  contrary,  unconstitutional 
language  this  day  delivered  from  it  ?  The  accustomed 
language  from  the  Throne  has  been  application  to  Parlia- 

10  ment  for  advice,  and  a  reliance  on  its  constitutional 
advice  and  assistance.  As  it  is  the  right  of  Parliament 
to  give,  so  it  is  the  duty  of  the  Crown  to  ask  it.  But  on 
this  day,  and  in  this  extreme  momentous  exigency,  no 
reliance  is  reposed  on  our  constitutional  counsels !   no 

15  advice  is  asked  from  the  sober  and  enlightened  care  of 
Parliament!  but  the  Crown,  from  itself  and  by  itself, 
declares  an  unalterable  determination  to  pursue  meas- 
ures—  and  what  measures,  my  Lords?  The  measures 
that  have  produced  the  imminent  perils  that  threaten  us ; 

20  the  measures  that  have  brought  ruin  to  our  doors. 

Can  the  Minister  of  the  day  now  presume  to  expect  a 
continuance  of  support  in  this  ruinous  infatuation  ?  Can 
Parliament  be  so  dead  to  its  dignity  and  its  duty  as  to 
be  thus  deluded  into  the  loss  of  the  one  and  the  viola- 

25  tion  of  the  other  ?  To  give  an  unlimited  credit  and 
support  for  the  steady  perseverance  in  measures  not 
proposed  for  our  parliamentary  advice,  but  dictated 
and  forced  upon  us  —  in  measures,  I  say,  my  Lords, 
which  have  reduced  this  late  flourishing  empire  to  ruin 

;k)  and  contempt  ?  "  But  yesterday,  and  England  might 
have  stood  against  the  world  :  now  none  so  poor  to  do 
her  reverence."  I  use  the  words  of  a  poet ;  but  though 
it  be  poetry,  it  is  no  fiction.  It  is  a  shameful  truth 
that  not  only  the   power  and   strength  of  this   country 

35  are   wasting  away   and   expiring,  but   her   well-earned 


On   Anierican  Affairs.  77 

glories,  her  true  honor  and  substantial  dignity,  are  sac- 
rificed. 

France,  my  Lords,  has  insulted  you ;  she  has  encour- 
aged and  sustained  America ;  and,  whether  America  be 
wrong  or  right,  the  dignity  of  this  country  ought  to  spurn  6 
at  the  officious  insult  of  French  interference.     The  min- 
isters and  embassadors  of  those  who  are  called  rebels 
and  enemies  are  in  Paris;  in  Paris  they  transact  the  re- 
il)rocal  interests  of  America  and  France.     Can  there  be 
.1  more  mortifying  insult  ?     Can  even  our  Ministers  sus-  lo 
tain  a  more   humiliating  disgrace  ?     Do  they  dare  to 
•  sent  it?    Do  they  presume  even  to  hint  a  vindication 
I  their  honor  and  the  dignity  of  the  state,  by  requiring 
the   dismission  of    the   plenipotentiaries  of  America? 
Such  is  the  degradation  to  which  they  have  reduced  the  15 
lories  of  England !     The  people  whom  they  affect  to 
ill  contemptible  rebels,  but  whose  growing  power  has  at 
i.ist  obtained  the   name  of  enemies;   the  people  with 
whom   they  have    engaged  this    country   in  war,   and 
against  whom  they  now  command  our  implicit  support  20 
in  every  measure  of  desperate  hostility  —  this  people, 
despised  as   rebels,   or  acknowledged    as   enemies,   are 
:il)etted  against  you,  supplied  with  every  military  store, 
their  interests  consulted,  and  their  embassadors  enter- 
tained, by  your  inveterate  enemy!  and  our  Ministers  dare  25 
!i<»t  interpose  with  dignity  or  effect.     Is  this  the  honor 
a   great  kingdom?     Is  this  the  indignant  spirit  of 
I  jighind,  who  "but  yesterday"  gave  law  to  the  house  of 
I»()iul)on  ?     My  Lords,  the  dignity  of  nations  demands  a 
(l.M  isive  conduct  in  a  situation  like  this.     Even  when  the  30 
neatest  prince  that  perhaps  this  country  ever  saw  filled 
ur  throne,  the  requisition  of  a  Spanish  general,  on  a 
miilar  suV)ject,  was  attended  to,  and  complied  with ;  for, 
n  the  spirited  remonstrance  of  the  Duke  of  Alva,  Eliza- 
lK3th  found  herself  obliged  to  deny  the  Flemish  exiles  all  35 


78  Chatham, 

countenance,  support,  or  even  entrance  into  her  domin- 
ions, and  the  Count  Le  Marque,  with  his  few  desperate 
followers,  were  expelled  the  kingdom.  Happening  to 
arrive  at  the  Brille,  and  finding  it  weak  in  defence,  they 

5  made  themselves  masters  of  the  place  ;  and  this  was  the 
foundation  of  the  United  Provinces. 

My  Lords,  this  ruinous  and  ignominious  situation, 
where  we  cannot  act  with  success,  nor  suffer  with  honor, 
calls  upon  us  to  remonstrate  in  the  strongest  and  loudest 

10  language  of  truth,  to  rescue  the  ear  of  Majesty  from  the 
delusions  which  surround  it.  The  desperate  state  of  our 
arms  abroad  is  in  part  known.  No  man  thinks  more 
highly  of  them  than  I  do.  I  love  and  honor  the  English 
troops.     I  know  their  virtues  and  their  valor.     I  know 

15  they  can  achieve  anything  except  impossibilities ;  and  I 
know  that  the  conquest  of  English  America  is  an  impos- 
sibility. You  cannot,  I  venture  to  say  it,  you  cannot 
conquer  America.  Your  armies  last  war  effected  every- 
thing that  could  be  effected ;  and  what  was  it  ?     It  cost 

20  a  numerous  army,  under  the  command  of  a  most  able 
general,  now  a  noble  lord  in  this  House,  a  long  and 
laborious  campaign  to  expel  five  thousand  Frenchmen 
from  French  America.  My  Lords,  you  cannot  conquer 
America. 

25  What  is  your  present  situation  there?  We  do  not 
know  the  worst ;  but  we  know  that  in  three  campaigns 
we  have  done  nothing  and  suffered  much.  Besides  the 
sufferings,  perhaps  total  loss,  of  the  northern  force,  the 
best  appointed  army  that  ever  took  the  field,  commanded 

30  by  Sir  William  Howe,  has  retired  from  the  American 
lines.  He  was  obliged  to  relinquish  his  attempt,  and 
with  great  delay  and  danger  to  adopt  a  new  and  distant 
plan  of  operations.  We  shall  soon  know,  and  in  any 
event  have  reason  to  lament,  what  may  have  happened 

35  since.     As  to  conquest,  therefore,  my  Lords,  I  repeat,  it 


On  American  Affairs,  79 

is  impossible.  Vou  may  swell  every  expense  and  every 
effort  still  more  extravagantly ;  pile  and  accumulate  every 
assistance  you  can  buy  or  borrow ;  traffic  and  barter  with 
every  little  pitiful  German  prince  that  sells  and  sends 
his  subjects  to  the  shambles  of  a  foreign  prince ;  your  6 
efforts  are  forever  vain  and  impotent  —  doubly  so  from 
this  mercenary  aid  on  which  you  rely;  for  it  irritates 
to  an  incurable  resentment  the  minds  of  your  enemies  to 
overrun  them  with  the  mercenary  sons  of  rapine  and 
plunder,  devoting  them  and  their  possessions  to  the  lo 
rapacity  of  hireling  cruelty  !  If  I  were  an  American,  as 
1  am  an  Englishman,  while  a  foreign  troop  was  landed 
in  my  country,  I  never  would  lay  down  my  arms  — never 
—  never  —  never. 

Your  own  army  is  infected  with  the  contagion  of  these  15 
illiberal  allies.  The  spirit  of  plunder  and  of  rapine  is 
gone  fortli  among  them.  I  know  it ;  and,  notwithstand- 
ing what  the  noble  Earl  who  moved  the  Address  has 
given  as  his  opinion  of  the  American  army,  I  know 
from  authentic  information  and  the  most  experienced  20 
•fficers,  that  our  discipline  is  deeply  wounded.  While 
this  is  notoriously  our  sinking  situation,  America  grows 
and  flourishes;  while  our  strength  and  discipline  are 
lowered,  hers  are  rising  and  improving. 

But,  my  Lords,  who  is  the  man  that,  in  addition  to  25 
these  disgraces  and  mischiefs  of  our  army,  has  dared  to 
authorize  and  associate  to  our  arms  the  tomahawk  and 
scali)ing-knife  of  the  savage  ?  to  call  into  civilized  alli- 
ance the  wild  and  inhuman  savage  of  the  woods ;  to  dele- 
irate  to  the  merciless  Indian  the  defence  of  disputed  30 
1  ights,  and  to  wage  the  horrors  of  his  barbarous  war 
ii^ainst  our  brethren?  My  Lords,  these  enormities  cry 
I  loud  for  redress  and  punishment.  Unless  thoroughly 
lone  away,  it  will  be  a  stain  on  the  national  character. 
It  is  a  violation  of  the  Constitution.     I  believe  it  is  35 


80  Chatham. 

against  law.  It  is  not  the  least  of  our  national  misfor- 
tunes that  the  strength  and  character  of  our  army  are 
thus  impaired.  Infected  with  the  mercenary  spirit  of 
robl)ery  and  rapine,  familiarized  to  the  horrid  scenes  of 
5  savage  cruelty,  it  can  no  longer  boast  of  the  noble  and 
generous  principles  which  dignify  a  soldier;  no  longer 
sympathize  with  the  dignity  of  the  royal  baimer,  nor  feel 
the  pride,  pomp,  and  circumstance  of  glorious  war,  "  that 
make  ambition  virtue  !  "     What  makes  ambition  virtue  ? 

10  —  the  sense  of  honor.  But  is  the  sense  of  honor  con- 
sistent with  a  spirit  of  plunder  or  the  practice  of  murder  ? 
Can  it  flow  from  mercenary  motives,  or  can  it  prompt  to 
cruel  deeds  ?  Besides  these  murderers  and  plunderers, 
let  me  ask  our  Ministers,  what  other  allies  have  they 

15  acquired  ?     What  other  powers  have  they  associated  to 

their  cause  ?     Have  they  entered  into  alliance  with  the 

king  of  the  gipsies  ?     Nothing,  my  Lords,  is  too  low  or 

too  ludicrous  to  be  consistent  with  their  counsels. 

The  independent  views  of  America  have  been  stated 

20  and  asserted  as  the  foundation  of  this  Address.  My 
Lords,  no  man  wishes  for  the  due  dependence  of  America 
on  this  country  more  than  I  do.  To  preserve  it,  and  not 
confirm  that  state  of  independence  into  which  your  meas- 
ui*es  hitherto  have  driven  them,  is  the  object  which  we 

25  ought  to  unite  in  attaining.  The  Americans,  contending 
for  their  rights  against  arbitrary  exactions,  I  love  and 
admire.  It  is  the  struggle  of  free  and  virtuous  patriots. 
But,  contending  for  independency  and  total  disconnection 
from  England,  as  an  Englishman,  I  cannot  wish  them 

30  success  ;  for  in  a  due  constitutional  dependency,  includ- 
ing the  ancient  supremacy  of  this  country  in  regulating 
their  commerce  and  navigation,  consists  the  mutual  hap 
piness  and  prosperity  of  both  England  and  America. 
She  derived  assistance  and  protection  from  us,  and  we 

35  reaped  from  her  the  most  important  advantages.     She 


On  American  Affairs,  81 

was,  indeed,  the  fountain  of  our  wealth,  the  nerve  of  our 
strength,  the  nursery  and  basis  of  our  naval  power.  It 
is  our  duty,  therefore,  my  Lords,  if  we  wish  to  save  our 
country,  most  seriously  to  endeavor  the  recovery  of  these 
most  beneficial  subjects  ;  and  in  this  perilous  crisis,  per-  5 
haps  the  present  moment  may  be  the  only  one  in  which 
we  can  hope  for  success ;  for  in  their  negotiations  with 
France,  they  have,  or  think  they  have,  reason  to  com- 
plain. Though  it  be  notorious  that  they  have  received 
from  that  power  important  supplies  and  assistance  of  10 
various  kinds,  yet  it  is  certain  they  expected  it  in  a  more 
decisive  and  immediate  degree.  America  is  in  ill-humor 
with  France ;  on  some  points  they  have  not  entirely  an- 
swered her  expectations.  Let  us  wisely  take  advantage 
of  every  possible  moment  of  reconciliation.  Besides,  the  16 
natural  disjwsition  of  America  herself  still  leans  toward 
England ;  to  the  old  habits  of  connection  and  mutual 
interest  that  united  both  countries.  This  was  the  estab- 
lished sentiment  of  all  the  continent ;  and  still,  my  Lords, 
in  the  great  and  principal  part,  the  sound  part  of  Amer-  20 
ica,  this  wise  and  affectionate  disposition  prevails.  And 
there  is  a  very  considerable  part  of  America  yet  sound  — 
the  middle  and  the  southern  Provinces.  Some  parts  may 
be  factious  and  blind  to  their  time  interests ;  but  if  we 
express  a  wise  and  benevolent  disposition  to  communicate  25 
with  them  those  immutable  rights  of  nature  and  those 
constitutional  liberties  to  which  they  are  equally  entitled 
with  ourselves,  by  a  conduct  so  just  and  humane  we  shall 
confirm  the  favorable  and  conciliate  the  adverse.  I  say, 
my  Lords,  the  rights  and  liberties  to  which  they  are  30 
ecjually  entitled  with  ourselves,  but  no  more.  I  would 
participate  to  them  every  enjoyment  and  freedom  which 
the  colonizing  subjects  of  a  free  state  can  possess,  or  wish 
to  possess ;  and  I  do  not  see  why  they  should  not  enjoy 
every  fundam(»ntal  right  in  th«Mr  property,  and  every  35 


82  Chatham, 

original  substantial  liberty,  which  Devonshire,  or  Surrey, 
or  the  county  I  live  in,  or  any  other  county  in  England, 
can  claim  ;  reserving  always,  as  the  sacred  right  of  the 
Mother  Countty,  the  due  constitutional  dependency  of 
5  the  Colonies.  The  inherent  supremacy  of  the  state  in 
regulating  and  protecting  the  navigation  and  commerce 
of  all  lier  subjects,  is  necessary  for  the  mutual  lienetit 
and  preservation  of  every  part,  to  constitute  and  pre- 
serve the  prosperous  arrangement  of  the  whole  empire. 

10  The  sound  parts  of  America,  of  which  I  have  spoken, 
must  be  sensible  of  these  great  truths  and  of  their  real 
interests.  America  is  not  in  that  state  of  desperate  and 
contemptible  rebellion  which  this  country  has  been  de- 
luded to  believe.     It  is  not  a  wild  and  lawless  banditti, 

15  who,  having  nothing  to  lose,  might  hope  to  snatch  some- 
thing from  public  convulsions.  Many  of  their  leaders 
and  great  men  have  a  great  stake  in  this  great  contest. 
The  gentleman  who  conducts  their  armies,  I  am  told,  has 
an  estate  of  four  or  five  thousand  pounds  a  year ;  and 

20  when  I  consider  these  things,  I  cannot  but  lament  the 
inconsiderate  violence  of  our  penal  acts,  our  declarations 
of  treason  and  rebellion,  with  all  the  fatal  effects  of 
attainder  and  confiscation. 

As  to  the  disposition  of  foreign  powers  which  is  as- 

25  serted  to  be  pacific  and  friendly,  let  us  judge,  my  Lords, 
rather  by  their  actions  and  the  nature  of  things  than  by 
interested  assertions.  The  uniform  assistance  supplied 
to  America  by  France  suggests  a  different  conclusion. 
The  most  important  interests  of  France  in  aggrandizing 

30  and  enriching  herself  with  what  she  most  wants,  supplies 
of  every  naval  store  from  America,  must  inspire  her  with 
different  sentiments.  The  extraordinary  preparations  of 
the  house  of  Bourbon,  by  land  and  by  sea,  from  Dunkirk 
to  the  Straits,  equally  ready  and  willing  to  overwhelm 

35  these  defenceless  islands,  should  rouse  us  to  a  sense  of 


On  American  Affairs.  83 

their  real  disposition  and  our  own  danger.  Not  five  thou- 
sand troops  in  England !  hardly  three  thousand  in  Ire- 
land !  What  can  we  oppose  to  the  combined  force  of  our 
enemies  ?  Scarcely  twenty  ships  of  the  line  so  fully  or 
sufficiently  manned  that  any  admiral's  reputation  would  6 
permit  him  to  take  the  command  of.  The  river  of  Lis- 
bon in  the  possession  of  our  enemies !  The  seas  swept 
by  American  privateers !  Our  Channel  trade  torn  to 
pieces  by  them !  In  this  complicated  crisis  of  danger  — 
weakness  at  home,  and  calamity  abroad,  terrified  and  in-  lo 
suited  by  the  neighboring  powers,  unable  to  act  in  Amer- 
ica, or  acting  only  to  be  destroyed  —  where  is  the  man 
with  the  forehead  to  promise  or  hope  for  success  in  such 
a  situation,  or  from  perseverance  in  the  measures  that 
have  driven  us  to  it  ?  Who  has  the  forehead  to  do  so  ?  15 
Where  is  that  man  ?     I  should  be  glad  to  see  his  face. 

You  cannot  conciliate  America  by  your  present  mea- 
sures. You  cannot  subdue  her  by  your  present  or  by 
any  measures.  What,  tlien,  can  you  do?  You  cannot 
conquer;  you  cannot  gain;  but  you  can  address  —  you  20 
can  lull  the  fears  and  anxieties  of  the  moment  into  an 
ignorance  of  the  danger  that  should  produce  them.  But, 
my  Lords,  the  time  demands  the  language  of  truth.  We 
must  not  now  apply  the  flattering  unction  of  servile  com- 
pliance or  blind  complaisance.  In  a  just  and  necessary  25 
war  tx)  maintain  the  rights  or  honor  of  my  country,  I 
would  strip  the  shirt  from  my  bacik  to  support  it.  But 
in  such  a  war  as  this,  unjust  in  its  principle,  impracti- 
cable in  its  means,  and  ruinous  in  its  consequences,  I 
would  not  contribute  a  single  effort  nor  a  single  shilling.  30 
I  do  not  call  for  vengeance  on  the  heads  of  those  wlio 
have  been  guilty ;  I  only  recommend  to  them  to  make 
their  retreat.  I^et  them  walk  off;  and  let  them  make 
liast*'.  or  they  may  be  assured  that  speedy  and  condign 
punishment  will  overtake  them.  35 


84  Chatham, 

My  Lords,  I  have  submitted  to  you,  with  the  freedom 
and  truth  which  I  think  my  duty,  my  sentiments  on  your 
present  awful  situation.  I  have  laid  before  you  the  ruin 
of  your  power,  the  disgrace  of  your  reputation,  the  pollu- 
5  tion  of  your  discipline,  the  contamination  of  your  morals, 
the  complication  of  calamities,  foreign  and  domestic, 
that  overwhelm  your  sinking  country.  Your  dearest  in- 
terests, your  own  liberties,  the  Constitution  itself,  tot- 
ters to  the  foundation.     All  this  disgraceful  danger,  this 

10  multitude  of  misery,  is  the  monstrous  offspring  of  this 
unnatural  war.  We  have  been  deceived  and  deluded  too 
long.  Let  us  now  stop  short.  This  is  the  crisis  —  the 
only  crisis  of  time  and  situation  —  to  give  us  a  possi- 
bility of  escape  from  the  fatal  effects  of  our  delusions. 

15  But  if,  in  an  obstinate  and  infatuated  perseverance  in 
folly,  we  slavishly  echo  the  peremptory  words  this  day 
presented  to  us,  nothing  can  save  this  devoted  country 
from  complete  and  final  ruin.  We  madly  rush  into  mul- 
tiplied miseries,  and  "  confusion  worse  confounded." 

20  Is  it  possible,  can  it  be  believed,  that  Ministers  are  yet 
blind  to  this  impending  destruction  ?  I  did  hope  that 
instead  of  this  false  and  empty  vanity,  this  overween- 
ing pride,  engendering  high  conceits  and  presumptuous 
imaginations.  Ministers  would  have  humbled  themselves 

25  in  their  errors,  would  have  confessed  and  retracted  them, 
and  by  an  active  though  a  late  repentance,  have  endeav- 
ored to  redeem  them.  But,  my  Lords,  since  they  had 
neither  sagacity  to  foresee,  nor  justice  nor  humanity  to 
shun  these  oppressive  calamities  —  since  not  even  severe 

30  experience  can  make  them  feel,  nor  the  imminent  ruin  of 
their  country  awaken  them  from  their  stupefaction,  the 
guardian  care  of  Parliament  must  interpose.  I  shall 
therefore,  my  Lords,  propose  to  you  an  amendment  of 
the  Address  to  his  Majesty,  to  be  inserted  immediately 

35  after  the  two  first  paragraphs  of  congratulation  on  the 


On  American  Affairs.  S."> 

biilli  oi"  a  princess,  to  recommend  an  inmiecliate  cessation 
of  hostilities,  and  the  commencement  of  a  treaty  to  re- 
store i)eace  and  liberty  to  America,  strength  and  happi- 
ness to  England,  security  and  i^ermanent  prosperity  to 
both  countries.  This,  my  Lords,  is  yet  in  our  power ;  6 
and  let  not  the  wisdom  and  justice  of  your  Lordships 
neglect  the  happy,  and,  jx>rhaps,  the  only  opix)rtunity. 
By  the  establishment  of  irrevocable  law  founded  on  mu- 
tual rights,  and  ascertained  by  treaty,  these  glorious 
enjoyments  may  be  firmly  })eri)etuated.  And  let  me  re- 10 
peat  to  your  Lordships  that  the  strong  bias  of  America, 
at  least  of  the  wise  and  sounder  parts  of  it,  naturally 
inclines  to  this  happy  and  constitutional  reconnection 
with  you.  Notwithstanding  the  tempoi-ary  intrigues 
with  France,  we  may  still  be  assured  of  their  ancient  15 
and  confirmed  partiality  to  us.  America  and  France 
cannot  be  congenial.  There  is  something  decisive  and 
confirmed  in  the  honest  American  that  will  not  assimi- 
late to  the  futility  and  levity  of  Frenchmen. 

My  Lords,  to  encourage  and  confirm  that  innate  incli-  20 
nation  to  this  country,  founded  on  eveiy  principle  of 
affection  as  well  as  consideration  of  interest ;  to  restore 
that  favoi-able  disposition  into  a  i)ermanent  and  ix)wer- 
ful  reunion  with  this  country ;  to  revive  the  mutual 
strength  of  the  empire ;  again  to  awe  the  house  of  Bour-  26 
bon,  instead  of  meanly  truckling,  as  our  present  calami- 
ties compel  us,  to  every  insult  of  French  caprice  and 
Spanish  punctilio ;  to  re-establish  our  commerce  j  to  re- 
assert our  rights  and  our  honor;  to  confirm  our  interests, 
and  renew  our  glories  forever  —  a  consummation  most  30 
devoutly  to  Iw  endeavored !  and  which,  I  trust,  may  yet 
arise  from  reconciliation  with  America  —  I  have  the 
honor  of  submitting  to  you  the  following  amendment, 
which  I  move  to  be  inserted  after  the  two  first  para- 
graphs of  the  Address:  36 


86  Chatham. 

"  And  that  this  House  does  most  humbly  advise  and  supplicate 
his  Majesty  to  be  pleased  to  cause  the  most  speedy  and  ef- 
fectual measures  to  be  taken  for  restoring  peace  in  America ; 
and  that  no  time  may  be  lost  in  proposing  an  immediate 
5  cessation  of  hostilities  there,  in  order  to  the  opening  of  a 

treaty  for  the  final  settlement  of  the  tranquillity  of  these 
invaluable  Provinces,  by  a  removal  of  the  imhappy  causes 
of  this  ruinous  civil  war,  and  by  a  just  and  adequate  security 
against  the  return  of  the  like  calamities  in  times  to  come. 

10  And  this  House  desire  to  ojffer  the  most  dutiful  assucances  to 

his  Majesty  that  they  will,  in  due  time,  cheerfully  co-operato 
with  the  magnanimity  and  tender  goodness  of  his  Majesty 
for  the  preservation  of  his  people,  by  such  explicit  and  most 
solemn   declarations,   and   provisions  of  fundamental  and 

15  irrevocable  laws,  as  may  be  judged  necessary  for  the  ascer- 

taining and  fixing  forever  the  respective  rights  of  Great 
Britain  and  her  Colonies. 

[In  the  course  of  this  debate,  Lord  Suffolk,  secretary 
for  the  Northern  Department,  undertook  to  defend  the 

20  employment  of  the  Indians  in  the  war.  His  Lordship 
contended  that,  besides  its  policy  and  necessity,  the  mea- 
sure was  also  allowable  on  principle ;  for  that  '^  it  was 
perfectly  justifiable  to  use  all  the  means  that  God  and 
nature  put  into  our  hands ! "] 

25      I  am  astonished  [exclaimed  Lord  Chatham  as  he  rose], 

shocked  to  hear  such  principles  confessed  —  to  hear  them 

avowed   in  this   House,  or  in  this   country;  principles 

equally  unconstitutional,  inhuman,  and  unchristian ! 

My  Lords,  I  did  not  intend  to  have  encroached  again 

30  upon  your  attention,  but  I  cannot  repress  my  indigna- 
tion. I  feel  myself  impelled  by  every  duty.  My  Lords, 
we  are  called  upon  as  members  of  this  House,  as  men,  as 
Christian  men,  to  protest  against  such  notions  standing 
near  the  Throne,  polluting  the  ear  of  Majesty.     "  That 

35  God  and  nature  put  into  our  hands ! "  I  know  not  what 
ideas  that  lord  may  entertain  of  God  and  nature,  but  I 
know  that  such  abominable  principles  are  equally  abhor- 


On  American  Affairs.  87 

rent  to  religion  and  humanity.  What !  to  attribute  the 
sacred  sanction  of  God  and  nature  to  the  massacres  of 
the  Indian  scalping-knife  —  to  the  cannibal  savage  tor- 
turing, murdering,  roasting,  and  eating — literally,  my 
Lords,  eating  the  mangled  victims  of  his  barbarous  bat-  5 
ties  !  Such  horrible  notions  shock  every  precept  of  reli- 
gion, divine  or  natural,  and  every  generous  feeling  of 
humanity.  And,  my  Lords,  they  shock  every  sentiment 
of  honor ;  they  shock  me  as  a  lover  of  honorable  war, 
and  a  detester  of  murderous  barbarity.  10 

These  abominable  principles,  and  this  more  abominable 
avowal  of  them,  demand  the  most  decisive  indignation. 
I  call  upon  that  right  reverend  bench,  those  holy  minis- 
ters of  the  Gospel,  and  pious  pastors  of  our  Church  —  I 
conjure  them  to  join  in  the  holy  work,  and  vindicate  the  15 
religion  of  their  God.  I  appeal  to  the  wisdom  and  the 
law  of  this  learned  bench  to  defend  and  support  the  jus- 
tice of  their  country.  I  call  upon  the  Bishops  to  in- 
terpose the  unsullied  sanctity  of  their  lawn ;  upon  the 
learned  Judges,  to  interpose  the  purity  of  their  ermine,  20 
to  save  us  from  this  jwllution.  I  call  upon  the  honor  of 
your  Lordships  to  revereqce  the  dignity  of  your  ances- 
tors, and  to  maintain  your  own.  I  call  upon  the  spirit 
and  humanity  of  my  country  to  vindicate  the  national 
character.  I  invoke  the  genius  of  the  Constitution.  25 
From  the  tai>estry  that  adorns  these  walls,  the  immortal 
ancestor  of  this  noble  lord  frowns  with  indignation  at  the 
disgrace  of  his  country.  In  vain  he  led  your  victorious 
fleets  against  the  boasted  Armada  of  Spain ;  in  vain  he 
defended  and  established  the  honor,  the  liberties,  the  30 
religion  —  the  Protestant  religion  —  of  this  countrj', 
against  the  arbitrary  cruelties  of  Popery  and  the  Inquisi- 
tion, if  these  more  than  popish  cruelties  and  inquisitorial 
practices  are  let  loose  among  us  —  to  turn  forth  into  our 
settlements,  among  our  ancient  connections,  friends,  and  35 


88  Chdtlinm, 

relations,  the  merciless  caiiiiiuai,  tliirsting  for  the  blood 
of  man,  woman,  and  child  !  to  send  forth  the  infidel  sav- 
age —  against  whom  ?  against  your  Protestant  brethren  ; 
to  lay  waste  their  country,  to  desolate  their  dwellings, 
Tt  and  extirpate  their  race  and  name  with  these  horrible 
hell-hounds  of  savage  war  —  hell-hounds,  I  say,  of  savage 
war!  Spain  armed  herself  with  blood-hounds  to  extir- 
pate the  wretched  natives  of  America,  and  we  improve  on 
the  inhuman  example  even  of  Spanish  cruelty  ;  we  turn 

10  loose  these  savage  hell-hounds  against  our  brethren  and 
countrymen  in  America,  of  the  same  language,  laws,  lib- 
erties, and  religion,  endeared  to  us  by  every  tie  that 
should  sanctify  humanity. 

My  Lords,  this  awful   subject,  so  important   to   our 

16  honor,  our  Constitution,  and  our  religion,  demands  the 
most  solemn  and  effectual  inquiry ;  and  I  again  call  upon 
your  Lordships,  and  the  united  jwwers  of  the  state,  to 
examine  it  thoroughly  and  decisively,  and  to  stamp  upon 
it  an  indelible  stigma  of  the  public  abhorrence.     And  I 

20  again  implore  those  holy  prelates  of  our  religion  to  do 
away  these  iniquities  from  among  us.  Let  them  perform 
a  lustration ;  let  them  puiify  this  House,  and  this  coun- 
try, from  this  sin. 

My  Lords,  I  am  old  and  weak,  and  at  present  unable 

25  to  say  more ;  but  my  feelings  and  indignation  were  too 
strong  to  have  said  less.  I  could  not  have  slept  this 
night  in  my  bed,  nor  reposed  my  head  on  my  pillow, 
without  giving  this  vent  to  my  eternal  abhorrence  of 
such  preposterous  and  enormous  principles. 


EDMUND   BURKE. 


SPEECH    PREVIOUS    TO    THE    BRISTOL    ELECTION  ;     A 

DEFENCE    OF    HIS    CONDUCT    IN    PARLIAMENT. 

AT   THE   GUILDHALL,    BRISTOL, 

SEPTEMBER   6,1780. 


Mr.  Mayor,  and  Gentlemen, 

I  am  extremely  pleased  at  the  appearance  of  this  large 
and  respectable  meeting.  The  steps  I  may  be  obliged  to 
take  will  want  the  sanction  of  a  considerable  authority; 
and  in  explaining  anything  which  may  appear  doubtful  5 
in  my  public  conduct,  I  must  naturally  desire  a  very  full 
audience. 

I  have  been  backward  to  begin  my  canvass.  The  dis- 
solution of  the  Parliament  was  uncertain ;  and  it  did  not 
become  me,  by  an  unseasonable  importunity,  to  appear  lo 
diffident  of  the  fact  of  my  six  years'  endeavors  to  please 
you.  I  had  served  the  city  of  Bristol  honorably;  and 
the  city  of  Bristol  had  no  reason  to  think  that  the  means* 
of  honorable  service  to  the  public  were  become  indifferent 
to  Hie.  15 

1  found  on  my  arrival  here  that  three  gentlemen  hiul 
been  long  in  eager  pursuit  of  an  object  which  but  two  of 
us  can  obtain.  I  found  that  they  had  all  met  with  en- 
couragement. A  contested  election,  in  such  a  city  as 
this,  is  no  light  thing.  I  paused  on  the  brink  of  the  20 
precipice.     These  three  gentlemen,  by  various  meriti 


90  Burke, 

and  on  various  titles,  I  made  no  doubt  were  worthy  of 
your  favor.  I  shall  never  attempt  to  raise  myself  by 
depreciating  the  merits  of  my  competitors.  In  the  com- 
plexity and  confusion  of  these  cross  pursuits,  I  wished 

5  to  take  the  authentic  public  sense  of  my  friends  upon  a 
business  of  so  much  delicacy.  I  wished  to  take  your 
opinion  along  with  me ;  that  if  I  should  give  up  the  con- 
test at  the  very  beginning,  my  surrender  of  my  post  may 
not  seem  the  effect  of  inconstancy,  or  timidity,  or  anger, 

10  or  disgust,  or  indolence,  or  any  other  temper  unbecoming 
a  man  who  has  engaged  in  the  public  service.  If,  on  the 
contrary,  I  should  undertake  the  election,  and  fail  of  suc- 
cess, I  was  full  as  anxious  that  it  should  be  manifest  to 
the  whole  world  that  the  peace  of  the  city  had  not  been 

15  broken  by  my  rashness,  presumption,  or  fond  conceit  of 
my  own  merit. 

I  am  not  come,  by  a  false  and  counterfeit  show  of 
deference  to  your  judgment,  to  seduce  it  in  my  favor. 
1  ask  it  seriously  and  unaffectedly.     If  you  wish  that  I 

20  should  retire,  I  shall  not  consider  that  advice  as  a  cen- 
sure upon  my  conduct,  or  an  alteration  in  your  senti- 
ments ;  but  as  a  rational  submission  to  the  circumstances 
of  affairs.  If,  on  the  contrary,  you  should  think  it 
proper  for  me  to  proceed  on  my  canvass,  if  you  will  risk 

25  the  trouble  on  your  part,  I  will  risk  it  on  mine.  My 
pretensions  are  such  as  you  cannot  be  ashamed  of, 
•whether  they  succeed  or  fail. 

If  you  call  upon  me,  I  shall  solicit  the  favor  of  the 
city  upon  manly  ground.     I  come  before  you  with  the 

30  plain  confidence  of  an  honest  servant  in  the  equity  of  a 
candid  and  discerning  master.  I  come  to  claim  your  ap- 
probation, not  to  amuse  you  with  vain  apologies,  or  with 
professions  still  more  vain  and  senseless.  I  have  lived 
too  long  to  be  served  by  apologies,  or  to  stand  in  need  of 

35  them.     The  part  I  have  acted  has  been  in  open  day ;  and 


Speech  at  Bristol.  91 

to  hold  out  to  a  conduct  which  stands  in  tliat  clear  and 
steady  light  for  all  its  good  and  all  its  evil,  to  hold  out 
to  that  conduct  the  paltry  winking  tapers  of  excuses  and 
])romi8es  —  I  never  will  do  it.  They  may  obscure  it  with 
their  smoke ;  but  they  never  can  illumine  sunshine  by  5 
such  a  flame  as  theirs.     — 

I  am  sensible  that  no  endeavors  have  been  left  untried 
to  injure  me  in  your  opinion.  But  the  use  of  character 
is  to  be  a  sineld  against  calumny.  I  could  wish,  un- 
doubtedly, if  idle  wishes  were  not  the  most  idle  of  all  lo 
things,  to  make  every  part  of  my  conduct  agreeable  to 
every  part  of  my  constituents.  But  in  so  great  a  city, 
and  so  greatly  divided  as  this,  it  is  weak  to  expect  it. 

In  such  a  discordancy  of  sentiments,  it  is  better  to  look 
to  the  nature  of  things  than  to  the  humors  of  men.     The  15 
very  attempt  towards  pleasing  everybody  discovers  a  tem- 
per always  flashy,  and  often  false  and  insincere.     There- 
fore, as  I  have  proceeded  straight  onward  in  my  conduct, 
so  I  will  proceed  in  my  account  of  those  parts  of  it  which 
have  been  most  excepted  to.     But  I  must  first  beg  leave  20 
just  to  hint  to  you  that  we  may  suffer  very  great  detri- 
ment by  being  oi)en  to  every  talker.     It  is  not  to  be  ima- 
gined how  much  of  service  is  lost  from  spirits  full  of 
activity  and   full  of  energy,  who  are  pressing,  who  are 
rushing,  forward  to  great  and  capital  objects,  when  you  ai 
oblige  them  to  be   continually   looking    back.     Whilst 
they  are  defending  one  service,  they  defraud  you  of  an   .- 
hundred.     Applaud  us  when  we  run;   console  us  when 
we  fall ;  cheer  us  when  we  recover ;  but  let  us  pass  on  — 
for  God's  sake,  let  us  pass  on.  30 

Do  you  think,  gentlemen,  that  every  public  act  in  the 
six  years  since  I  stood  in  this  place  before  you  —  that  all 
the  arduous  things  which  have  been  done  in  this  event- 
ful period,  which  has  crowded  into  a  few  years'  space  the 
revolutions  of  an  age,  can  be  opened  to  you  on  their  fair  36 
grounds  in  half  an  hour's  conversation  ? 


92  Burke. 

But  it  is  DO  reason,  because  there  is  a  bad  mode  of 
inquiry,  that  there  should  be  no  examination  at  all. 
Most  certainly  it  is  our  duty  to  examine  —  it  is  our 
interest,  too ;  but  it  must  be  with  discretion  —  with  an 
5  attention  to  all  the  circumstances,  and  to  all  the  motives ; 
like  sound  judges,  and  not  like  cavilling  pettifoggers 
and  quibbling  pleaders,  prying  into  flaws  and  hunting 
for  exceptions.  Look,  gentlemen,  to  the  whole  tenor  of 
your  member^s  conduct.     Try  whether  his  ambition  or 

10  his  avarice  have  justled  him  out  of  the  straight  line  of 
duty ;  or  whether  that  grand  foe  of  the  offices  of  active 
life,  that  master-vice  in  men  of  business,  a  degenerate 
and  inglorious  sloth,  has  made  him  flag  and  languish  in 
his  course  ?    This  is  the  object  of  our  inquiry.     If  our 

16  member's  conduct  can  bear  this  touch,  mark  it  for  ster- 
ling. He  may  have  fallen  into  errors ;  he  must  have 
faidts;  but  our  error  is  greater,  and  our  faiilt  is  radi- 
cally ruinous  to  ourselves,  if  we  do  not  bear,  if  we  do  not 
even  applaud,  the  whole  compound  and  mixed  mass  of 

20  such  a  character.  Not  to  act  thus  is  folly ;  I  had  almost 
said  it  is  impiety.  He  censures  God  who  quarrels  with 
the  imperfections  of  man. 

Crentlemen,  we  must  not  be  peevish  with  those  who 
serve  the  people.     For  none  will  serve  us,  whilst  there  is 

25  a  court  to  serve,  but  those  who  are  of  a  nice  and  jealous 
honor.  They  who  think  everything,  in  comparison  of 
that  honor,  to  be  dust  and  ashes,  will  not  bear  to  have  it 
soiled  and  impaired  by  those  for  whose  sake  they  make 
a    thousand    sacrifices   to   preserve   it  immaculate    and 

30  whole.  We  shall  either  drive  such  men  from  the 
public  stage,  or  we  shall  send  them  to  the  court  for 
protection ;  where,  if  they  must  sacrifice  their  reputa- 
tion, they  will  at  least  secure  their  interest.  Depend 
upon  it  that  the  lovers  of  freedom  will  be  free.     Kone 

35  will  \4olate  their  conscience  to  please  us,  in  order  after- 


,Sy..  ,    ,.   <if   Bristol.  93 

wards  to  discliarge  that  conscicnco,  which  they  have  vio- 
lated, by  doing  us  faithful  and  affectionate  service.  If 
we  degrade  and  deprave  their  minds  by  servility,  it  will 
l>e  absurd  to  expect  that  they  who  are  creeping  and 
abject  towards  us  will  ever  be  bold  and  incorruptible  5 
assertors  of  our  freedom  against  the  most  seducing  and 
the  most  formidable  of  all  powers.  No !  human  nature 
is  not  so  formed ;  nor  shall  we  improve  the  faculties  or 
better  the  morals  of  public  men  by  our  possession  of  the 
most  infallible  receipt  in  the  world  for  making  cheats  lo 
and  hypocrites. 

Let  me  say  with  plainness,  I  who  am  no  longer  in  a 
public  character,  that  if  by  a  fair,  by  an  indulgent,  by 
a  gentlemanly  behavior  to  our  representatives,  we  do  not 
give  confidence  to  their  minds,  and  a  liberal  scope  to  15 
their  understandings ;  if  we  do  not  permit  our  members 
to  act  upon  a  very  enlarged  view  of  things  ;  we  shall  at        ,, 
length  infallibly  degrade  our  national  representation  into    _►  - 
a  confused  and  scuffling  bustle  of  local  agency.     Wlien  "^^  '"*" 
the  popular  member  is  narrowed  in  his  ideas,  and  ren-  20 
dered  timid  in  his  proceedings,  the  service  of  the  Crown 
will  be  the  sole  nursery  of  statesmen.     Among  the  frolics 
of  tlie  court  it  may  at  length  take  that  of  attending  to 
its  business.     Then  the  monopoly  of  mental  power  will 
be  added  to  the  power  of  all  other  kinds  it  possesses.  25 
On  the  side  of  the  people  there  will  l^e  nothing  but  impo- 
tence: for  ignorance  is  impotence;  narrowness  of  mind 
is  impotence ;   timidity  is  itself  impotence,  and  makes 
all  other  qualities  that  go  along  with  it  impotent  and 
useless.  30 

At  present  it  is  the  plan  of  the  court  to  make  its  ser- 
vants insignificant.  If  the  people  should  fall  into  the 
same  humor,  and  should  choose  their  servants  on  the 
same  principles  of  mere  obsequiousness,  and  flexibility, 
and  total  vacancy  or  indifference  of  opinion  in  all  public  35 


94  Burke, 

matters,  then  no  part  of  tne  state  will  be  sound ;  and  it 
will  be  in  vain  to  think  of  saving  it. 

I  thought  it  very  expedient  at  this  time  to  give  you 
this  candid  counsel ;  and  with  this  counsel  I  would  will- 
5  ingly  close,  if  the  matters  which  at  various  times  have 
been  objected  to  me  in  this  city  concerned  only  myself, 
and  my  own  election.  These  charges,  I  think,  are  four 
in  number :  my  neglect  of  a  due  attention  to  my  con- 
stituents,  the   not  paying    more   frequent   visits  here ; 

10  my  conduct  on  the  affairs  of  the  first  Irish  Trade  Acts ; 
my  opinion  and  mode  of  proceeding  on  Lord  Beauchamp's 
Debtors  Bills ;  and  my  votes  on  the  late  affairs  of  the 
Roman  Catholics.  All  of  these  (except  perhaps  the  first) 
relate  to  matters  of  very  considerable  public  concern ; 

15  and  it  is  not  lest  you  should  censure  me  improperly,  but 
lest  you  should  form  improper  opinions  on  matters  of 
some  moment  to  you,  that  I  trouble  you  at  all  upon  the 
subject.     My  conduct  is  of  small  importance. 

With  regard  to  the  first  charge,  my  friends  have  spoken 

20  to  me  of  it  in  the  style  of  amicable  expostulation ;  not 
so  much  blaming  the  thing,  as  lamenting  the  effects. 
Others,  less  partial  to  me,  were  less  kind  in  assigning 
the  motives.  I  admit  there  is  a  decorum  and  propriety 
in  a  member  of  Parliament's  paying  a  respectful  court  to 

25  his  constituents.  If  I  were  conscious  to  myself  that 
pleasure  or  dissipation,  or  low,  unworthy  occupations, 
had  detained  me  from  personal  attendance  on  you,  I 
would  readily  admit  my  fault,  and  quietly  submit  to 
the  penalty.     But,  gentlemen,  I  live  at  a  hundred  miles' 

30  distance  from  Bristol ;  and  at  the  end  of  a  session  I  come 
to  my  own  house,  fatigued  in  body  and  in  mind,  to  a  little 
repose,  and  to  a  very  little  attention  to  my  family  and 
my  private  concerns.  A  visit  to  Bristol  is  always  a  sort 
of  canvass;  else  it  will  do  more  harm  than  good.     To 

35  pass  from  the  toils  of  a  session  to  the  toils  of  a  canvass 


Speech  at  Bristol.  95 

is  the  furthest  thing  in  the  world  from  repose.  I  couhl 
hardly  serve  you  as  I  have  done,  and  court  you  too.  Most 
of  you  have  heard  that  I  do  not  very  remarkably  spare 
myself  in  public  business ;  and  in  the  private  business  of 
my  constituents  I  have  done  very  nearly  as  much  as  those  6 
who  have  nothing  else  to  do.  My  canvass  of  you  was 
not  on  the  'Change,  nor  in  the  county  meetings,  nor  in  the 
clubs  of  this  city.  It  was  in  the  House  of  Commons ;  it 
was  at  the  custom-house ;  it  was  at  the  council ;  it  was  at 
the  treasury ;  it  was  at  the  admiralty.  I  canvassed  you  lo 
through  your  affairs,  and  not  your  persons.  I  was  not 
only  your  representative  as  a  body ;  I  was  the  agent,  the 
solicitor  of  individuals ;  I  ran  about  wherever  your  affairs 
could  call  me ;  and  in  acting  for  you,  I  often  appeared 
rather  as  a  ship-broker  than  as  a  member  of  Parliament.  15 
There  was  nothing  too  laborious  or  too  low  for  me  to 
undertake.  The  meanness  of  the  business  was  raised  by 
the  dignity  of  the  object.  If  some  lesser  matters  have 
slipped  through  my  fingers,  it  was  because  I  filled  my 
hands  too  full,  and,  in  my  eagerness  to  serve  you,  took  20 
in  more  than  any  hands  could  grasp.  Several  gentlemen 
stand  round  me  who  are  my  willing  witnesses ;  and  there 
are  others  who,  if  they  were  here,  would  be  still  better, 
because  they  would  be  unwilling  witnesses  to  the  same 
truth.  It  was  in  the  middle  of  a  summer  residence  in  25 
London,  and  in  the  middle  of  a  negotiation  at  the  admi- 
ralty for  your  trade,  that  I  was  called  to  Bristol;  and 
this  late  visit,  at  this  late  day,  has  been  possibly  in 
prejudice  to  your  affairs. 

Since  I  have  touched  upon  this  matter,  let  me  say,  30 
gentlemen,  that  if  I  had  a  disposition  or  a  right  to  com- 
I)lain,  I  have  some  cause  of  complaint  on  my  side.  With 
a  petition  of  the  city  in  my  hand,  passed  through  the 
corporation  without  a  dissenting  voice,  a  petition  in 
unison  with  almost  the  whole  voice  of  the  kingdom  35 


96  Burke, 

(with  whose  formal  thanks  I  was  covered  over)  —  while 
I  labored  on  no  less  than  five  bills  for  a  public  reform, 
and  fought,  against  the  opposition  of  great  abilities  and 
of  the  greatest  power,  every  clause  and  every  word  of 
r*  the  largest  of  those  bills  almost  to  the  very  last  day  of 
a  very  long  session;  —  all  this  time  a  canvass  in  Bristol 
was  as  calmly  carried  on  as  if  I  were  dead.  I  was  con- 
sidered as  a  man  wholly  out  of  the  question.  A\Tiilst  I 
watched,  and  fasted,  and  sweated  in  the  House  of  Com- 

10  mons,  by  the  most  easy  and  ordinary  arts  of  election  — 
by  dinners  and  visits,  by  **How  do  you  do's,"  and  "My 
worthy  friends,"  —  I  was  to  be  quietly  moved  out  of  my 
seat ;  and  promises  were  made  and  engagements  entered 
into,  without  any  exception  or  reserve,  as  if  my  laborious 

15  zeal  in  my  duty  had  been  a  regular  abdication  of  my 
trust. 

To  open  my  whole  heart  to  you  on  this  subject,  I  do 
confess,  however,  that  there  were  other  times  besides  the 
two  years  in  which  I  did  visit  you,  when  I  was  not 

20  wholly  without  leisure  for  repeating  that  mark  of  my  re- 
spect. But  I  could  not  bring  my  mind  to  see  you.  You 
remember,  that  in  the  beginning  of  this  American  war 
(that  era  of  calamity,  disgrace,  and  downfall,  an  era 
which  no  feeling  mind  will  ever  mention  without  a  tear 

25  for  England)  you  were  greatly  divided ;  and  a  vtry 
strong  body,  if  not  the  strongest,  opposed  itself  to  the 
madness  which  every  art  and  every  power  were  employed 
to  render  popular,  in  order  that  the  errors  of  the  rulers 
might  be  lost  in  the  general   blindness  of  Jbhe  nation. 

30  This  opposition  continued  until  after  our  great,  but 
most  unfortunate,  victory  at  Long  Island.  Then  all  the 
mounds  and  banks  of  our  constancy  were  borne  down  at 
once ;  and  the  frenzy  of  the  American  war  broke  in  upon 
us  like  a  deluge.     This  victory,  which  seemed  to  put  an 

35  immediate  end  to  all   difficulties,  perfected  us  in  that 


Speech  at  Bristol.  97 

spirit  of  domination,  which  our  unparalleled  prosperity 
had  but  too  long  nurtured.  We  had  been  so  very  power- 
ful, and  so  very  prosperous,  that  even  the  humblest  of  us 
were  degraded  into  the  vices  and  follies  of  kings.  We 
lost  all  measure  between  means  and  ends ;  and  our  head-  6 
long  desires  became  our  politics  and  our  morals.  All 
men  who  wished  for  peace,  or  retained  any  sentiments  of 
moderation,  were  overborne  or  silenced;  and  this  city 
was  led  by  every  artifice  (and  probably  with  the  more 
management,  because  I  was  one  of  your  members)  to  dis- 10 
tinguish  itself  by  its  zeal  for  that  fatal  cause.  In  this 
temper  of  your  and  of  my  mind,  I  should  have  sooner 
fled  to  the  extremities  of  the  earth,  than  have  shown  my- 
self here.  I,  who  saw  in  every  American  victory  (for 
you  have  had  a  long  series  of  these  misfortunes)  the  16 
germ  and  seed  of  the  naval  power  of  France  and  Spain, 
which  all  our  heat  and  warmth  against  America  was  only 
hatching  into  life,  —  I  should  not  have  been  a  welcome 
visitant  with  the  brow  and  the  language  of  such  feelings. 
When,  afterwards,  the  other  face  of  your  calamity  was  ao 
turned  upon  you,  and  showed  itself  in  defeat  and  dis- 
tress, I  shunned  you  full  as  much.  I  felt  sorely  this 
variety  in  our  wretchedness ;  and  I  did  not  wish  to  have 
the  least  appearance  of  insulting  you  with  that  show  of 
superiority,  which,  though  it  may  not  be  assumed,  is  26 
generally  suspected  in  a  time  of  calamity  from  those 
whose  previous  warnings  have  been  despised.  I  could 
not  bear  to  show  you  a  representative  whose  face  did  not 
reflect  that  of  his  constituents ;  a  face  that  could  not  joy 
in  your  joys,  and  sorrow  in  your  sorrows.  But  time  at  30 
length  has  made  us  all  of  one  opinion ;  and  we  have  all 
opened  our  eyes  on  the  true  nature  of  the  American  war, 
to  the  true  nature  of  all  its  successes  and  all  its  failures. 
In  that  public  storm,  too,  I  had  my  private  feelings.  I 
Ijad  seen  blown  down  and  prostrate  on  the  ground  sev-  as 


98  Burke. 

eral  of  those  houses  to  whom  I  was  chiefly  indebted  for 
the  honor  this  city  has  done  me.  I  confess  that,  whilst 
the  wounds  of  those  I  loved  were  yet  green,  I  could  not 
bear  to  show  myself  in  pride  and  triumph  in  that  place 
5  into  which  their  partiality  had  brought  me,  and  to  appear 
at  feasts  and  rejoicings,  in  the  midst  of  the  grief  and 
calamity  of  my  warm  friends,  my  zealous  supporters,  my 
generous  benefactors.  This  is  a  true,  unvarnished,  un- 
disguised state  of  the  affair.     You  will  judge  of  it. 

10  This  is  the  only  one  of  the  charges  in  which  I  am  person- 
ally concerned.  As  to  the  other  matters  objected  against 
me,  which  in  their  turn  I  shall  mention  to  you,  remem- 
ber once  more  I  do  not  mean  to  extenuate  or  excuse. 
Why  should  I,  when  the  things  charged  are  among  those 

IB  upon  which  I  found  all  my  reputation?  A\Tiat  would 
be  left  to  me,  if  I  myself  was  the  man  who  softened, 
and  blended,  and  diluted,  and  weakened,  all  the  distin- 
guishing colors  of  my  life,  so  as  to  leave  nothing  distinct 
and  determinate  in  my  whole  conduct  ? 

20  It  has  been  said,  and  it  is  the  second  charge,  that  in 
the  questions  of  the  Irish  trade,  I  did  not  consult  the  in- 
terest of  my  constituents  ;  or,  to  speak  out  strongly,  that 
I  rather  acted  as  a  native  of  Ireland,  than  as  an  English 
member  of  Parliament. 

25  I  certainly  have  very  warm  good  wishes  for  the  place 
of  my  birth.  But  the  sphere  of  my  duties  is  my  true 
country.  It  was  as  a  man  attached  to  your  interests, 
and  zealous  for  the  conservation  of  your  power  and  dig- 
nity, that  I  acted  on  that  occasion,  and  on  all  occasions. 

30  You  were  involved  in  the  American  war.  A  new  world 
of  policy  was  opened,  to  which  it  was  necessary  we 
should  conform,  whether  we  would  or  not ;  and  my  only 
thought  was  how  to  conform  to  our  situation  in  such  a 
manner  as  to  unite  to  this  kingdom,  in  prosperity  and  in 

35  affection,  whatever  remained  of  the  empire.     I  was  true 


Speech  at  Bristol,  99 

to  my  old,  standing,  invariable  principle,  that  all  things, 
which  came  from  Great  Britain,  should  issue  as  a  gift  of 
her  bounty  and  beneficence,  rather  than  as  claims  recov- 
ered against  a  struggling  litigant ;  or  at  least,  that  if 
your  beneficence  obtained  no  credit  in  your  concessions,  6 
yet  that  they  should  appear  the  salutary  provisions  of 
your  wisdom  and  foresight,  not  as  things  wrung  from 
you  with  your  blood  by  the  cruel  gripe  of  a  rigid  neces- 
sity. The  first  concessions,  by  being  (much  against  my 
will)  mangled  and  stripped  of  the  parts  which  were  lO 
necessary  to  make  out  their  just  correspondence  and  con- 
nection in  trade,  were  of  no  use.  The  next  year  a  feeble 
attempt  was  made  to  bring  the  thing  into  better  shape. 
This  attempt  (countenanced  by  the  Minister)  on  the  very 
first  appearance  of  some  popular  uneasiness,  was,  after  a  15 
considerable  progress  through  the  House,  thrown  out  by 
him. 

What  was  the  consequence  ?  The  whole  kingdom  of 
Ireland  was  instantly  in  a  flame.  Threatened  by  for- 
eigners, and,  as  they  thought,  insulted  by  England,  they  20 
resolved  at  once  to  resist  the  power  of  France,  and  to  cast 
off  yours.  As  for  us,  we  were  able  neither  to  protect  nor 
to  restrain  them.  Forty  thousand  men  were  raised  and 
disciplined  without  commission  from  the  Crown.  Two 
illegal  armies  were  seen  with  banners  displayed  at  the  25 
same  time  and  in  the  same  country.  No  executive  ma- 
gistrate, no  judicature  in  Ireland,  would  acknowledge  the 
legality  of  the  army  which  bore  the  King's  commission ; 
and  no  law,  or  appearance  of  law,  authorized  the  army 
commissioned  by  itself.  In  this  unexampled  state  of  30 
things,  which  the  least  error,  the  least  trespass  on  the 
right  or  left,  would  have  hurried  down  the  precipice  into 
an  abyss  of  blood  and  confusion,  the  people  of  Ireland 
demand  a  freedom  of  trade  with  arms  in  their  hands. 
They  interdict  all  commerce  between  the  two  nations.  SB 


100  Burke, 

They  deny  all  new  supply  in  the  House  of  Commons, 
although  in  time  of  war.  They  stint  the  trust  of  the  old 
revenue,  given  for  two  years  to  all  the  King's  predeces- 
sors, to  six  months.  The  British  Parliament,  in  a  former 
6  session,  frightened  into  a  limited  concession  by  the  men- 
aces of  Ireland,  frightened  out  of  it  by  the  menaces  of 
England,  were  now  frightened  back  again,  and  made  a 
universal  surrender  of  all  that  had  been  thought  the 
peculiar,  reserved,  uncommunicable  riglits  of  England; 

10  —  the  exclusive  commerce  of  America,  of  Africa,  of  the 
West  Indies  —  all  the  enumerations  of  the  Acts  of  Navi- 
gation—  all  the  manufactures  —  iron,  glass  —  even  the 
last  pledge  of  jealousy  and  pride,  the  interest  hid  in  the 
secret  of  our  hearts,  the  inveterate  prejudice  moulded 

15  into  the  constitution  of  our  frame,  even  the  sacred  fleece 
itself,  all  went  together.  No  reserve ;  no  exception  ;  no 
debate;  no  discussion.  A  sudden  light  broke  in  upon 
us  all.  It  broke  in,  not  through  well-contrived  and  well- 
disposed  windows,  but  through   flaws    and    breaches ; 

20  through  the  yawning  chasms  of  our  ruin.  We  were 
taught  wisdom  by  humiliation.  No  town  in  England 
presumed  to  have  a  prejudice,  or  dared  to  mutter  a 
petition.  What  was  worse,  the  whole  Parliament  of 
England,  which  retained  authority  for  nothing  but  sur- 

25  renders,  was  despoiled  of  every  shadow  of  its  superin- 
tendence. It  was,  without  any  qualification,  denied  in 
theory,  as  it  had  been  trampled  upon  in  practice.  This 
scene  of  shame  and  disgrace  has,  in  a  manner  whilst  I 
am  speaking,  ended  by  the  perpetual  establishment  of  a 

30  military  power  in  the  dominions  of  this  Crown,  without 
consent  of  the  British  legislature,  contrary  to  the  policy 
of  the  Constitution,  contrary  to  the  Declaration  of  Right ; 
and  by  this  your  liberties  are  swept  away  along  with 
your  supreme  authority  —  and  both,  linked  together  from 

35  the  beginning,  have,  I  am  afraid,  both  together  perished 
forever. 


Speech  at  Bristol,  10 1 

What !  gentlemen,  w;is  I  not  to  foresee,  or  foreseeing, 
was  I  not  to  endeavor  to  save  you  from  all  these  multi- 
plied mischiefs  and  disgraces  ?  Would  the  little,  silly, 
canvass  prattle  of  obeying  instructions,  and  having  no 
opinions  but  yours,  and  such  idle  senseless  tales,  which  5 
amuse  the  vacant  ears  of  unthinking  men,  have  saved 
you  from  "  the  pelting  of  that  pitiless  storm,"  to  which 
the  loose  improvidence,  the  cowardly  rashness,  of  those 
who  dare  not  look  danger  in  the  face  so  as  to  provide 
against  it  in  time,  and  therefore  throw  themselves  head- 10 
long  into  the  midst  of  it,  have  exposed  this  degraded 
nation,  beaten  down  and  prostrate  on  the  earth,  unshel- 
tered, unarmed,  unresisting  ?  Was  I  an  Irishman  on 
that  day  that  I  boldly  withstood  our  pride  ?  or  on  the 
day  that  I  hung  down  my  head,  and  wept  in  shame  and  15 
silence  over  the  humiliation  of  Great  Britain  ?  I  became 
unpopular  in  England  for  the  one,  and  in  Ireland  for  the 
other.  What  then  ?  What  obligation  lay  on  me  to  be 
popular?  I  was  bound  to  serve  both  kingdoms.  To 
be  pleased  with  my  service  was  their  affair,  not  mine.       20 

L  was  an  Irishman  in  the  Irish  business,  just  as  much 
as  I  was  an  American,  when,  on  the  same  principles,  I 
wished  you  to  concede  to  America,  at  a  time  when  she 
prayed  concession  at  our  feet.  Just  as  much  was  I  an 
American,  when  I  wished  Parliament  to  offer  terms  in  25 
victory,  and  not  to  wait  the  well-chosen  hour  of  defeat 
for  making  good  by  weakness,  and  by  supplication,  a 
claim  of  prerogative,  pre-eminence,  and  authority. 

Instead  of  requiring  it  from  me,  as  a  point  of  duty,  to 
kindle  with  your  passions,  had  you  all  been  as  cool  as  I  ao 
was,  you  would  have  been  saved  from  disgraces  and*  dis- 
tresses that  are  unutterable.  Do  you  remember  our  Com- 
mission ?  We  sent  out  a  solemn  embassy  across  the 
Atlantic  Ocean,  to  lay  the  Crown,  the  Peerage,  the  Com- 
mons of  Great  Britain,  at  the  feet  of  the  American  3S 


102  Burke, 

Congress.  That  our  disgrace  might  want  no  sort  of 
brightening  and  burnishing,  observe  who  they  were  that 
composed  this  famous  embassy !  My  Lord  Carlisle  is 
among  the  first  ranks  of  our  nobility.     He  is  the  identi- 

5  cal  man  who,  but  two  years  before,  had  been  put  forward, 
at  the  opening  of  the  session  in  the  House  of  Lords,  as 
the  mover  of  a  haughty  and  rigorous  Address  against 
America.  He  was  put  in  the  front  of  the  embassy  of 
submission.     Mr.  Eden  was  taken  from  the  office  of  Lord 

10  Suffolk,  to  whom  he  was  then  Under-Secretary  of  State  ; 
from  the  office  of  that  Lord  Suffolk,  wlio  but  a  few  weeks 
before,  in  his  place  in  Parliament,  did  not  deign  to  in- 
quire where  a  congress  of  vagrants  was  to  be  found. 
This  Lord  Suffolk  sent  Mr.  Eden  to  find  these  vagrants, 

15  without  knowing  where  this  King's  generals  were  to  be 
found,  who  were  joined  in  the « same  commission  of  suj)- 
plicating  those  whom  they  were  sent  to  subdue.  11  ny 
enter  the  capital  of  America  only  to  abandon  it;  and 
these  assertors  and  representatives  of  the  dignity  of  Eng- 

20  land,  at  the  tail  of  a  flying  army,  let  fly  their  Parthian 
shafts  of  memorials  and  remonstrances  at  random  behind 
them.  Their  promises  and  their  offers,  their  flatteries 
and  their  menaces,  were  all  despised  ;  and  we  were  saved 
from  the  disgrace  of  their  formal  reception,  only  because 

25  the  Congress  scorned  to  receive  them ;  whilst  the  state- 
house  of  independent  Philadelphia  opened  her  doors  to 
the  public  entry  of  the  ambassador  of  France.  From  war 
and  blood  we  went  to  submission ;  and  from  submission 
plunged  back  again  to  war  and  blood ;  to  desolate  and 

30  be  desolated,  without  measure,  hope,  or  end.  I  am  a 
Royalist ;  I  blushed  for  this^-^^gradation  of  the  Crown. 
I  am  a  Whig ;  I  blushed  for  the  dishonor  of  Parliament. 
I  am  a  true  Englishman ;  I  felt  to  the  quick  for  the  dis- 
grace of  England.     I  am  a  man ;  I  felt  for  the  melancholy 

35  reverse  of  human  affairs,  in  the  fall  of  the  first  power  in 
the  worll. 


Speech  a(    linstoL  103 

To  read  what  was  approaching  in  Ireland,  in  the  black 
and  bloody  characters  of  the  American  war,  was  a  pain- 
ful, but  it  was  a  necessary,  part  of  my  public  duty.  For, 
gentlemen,  it  is  not  your  fond  desires  or  mine  that  can 
alter  the  nature  of  things  ;  by  contending  against  which,  6 
what  have  we  got,  or  shall  ever  get,  but  defeat  and  shame  ? 
T  did  not  obey  your  instructions :  No.  I  conformed  to 
t  he  instructions  of  truth  and  nature,  and  maintained  your 
interest,  against  your  opinions,  with  a  constancy  that 
became  me.  A  representative  worthy  of  you  ought  to  be  lO 
;i  person  of  stability.  I  am  to  look,  indeed,  to  your  opin- 
ions; but  to  such  opinions  as  you  and  I  must  have  five 
\  t'liis  hence.  I  was  not  to  look  to  the  flash  of  the  day. 
I  knew  that  you  chose  me,  in  my  place,  along  with 
others,  to  be  a  pillar  of  the  state,  and  not  a  weathercock  15 
on  the  top  of  the  edifice,  exalted  for  my  levity  and  ver- 
satility, and  of  no  use  but  to  indicate  the  shiftings  of 
every  fashionable  gale.  Would  to  God  the  value  of  my 
sentiments  on  Ireland  and  on  America  had  been  at  this 
day  a  subject  of  doubt  and  discussion  !  No  matter  what  20 
my  sufferings  had  been,  so  that  this  kingdom  had  kept 
the  authority  I  wished  it  to  maintain,  by  a  grave  fore- 
sight, and  by  an  equitable  temperance  in  the  use  of  its 
power. 

The  next  article  of  charge  on  my  public  conduct,  and  26 
that  which  I  find  rather  the  most  prevalent  of  all,  is 
Lord  Beauchamp's  bill.  I  mean  his  bill  of  last  session 
for  reforming  the  law-process  concerning  imprisonment. 
It  is  said,  to  aggravate  the  offence,  that  I  treated  the  i)eti- 
tion  of  this  city  with  contempt  even  in  presenting  it  to  30 
the  House,  and  expressed  myself  in  terms  of  marked  dis- 
respect. Had  this  latter  part  of  the  charge  been  true,  no 
merits  on  the  side  of  the  question  which  I  took  could 
possibly  excuse  me.  But  I  am  incapable  of  treating  this 
city  with  disrespect    Very  fortunately,  at  this  minute  35 


104  Burke. 

(if  my  bad  eyesight  does  not  deceive  me)  the  worthy 
gentleman  deputed  on  this  business  stands  directly  be- 
fore me.  To  him  I  appeal,  whether  I  did  not,  thougli 
it  militated  with  my  oldest  and  my  most  recent  public 
6  opinions,  deliver  the  petition  with  a  strong  and  more 
than  usual  recommendation  to  the  consideration  of  the 
House,  on  account  of  the  character  and  consequence  of 
those  who  signed  it.  I  believe  the  worthy  gentleman 
will  tell  you,  that  the  very  day  I  received  it,  I  applied  to 

10  the  Solicitor,  now  the  Attorney-General,  to  give  it  an 
immediate  consideration;  and  he  most  obligingly  and 
instantly  consented  to  employ  a  great  deal  of  his  very 
valuable  time  to  write  an  explanation  of  the  bill.  I 
attended  the  committee  with  all  possible  care  and  dili- 

15  gence,  in  order  that  every  objection  of  yours  might  meet 
with  a  solution,  or  produce  an  alteration.  I  entreated 
your  learned  Recorder  (always  ready  in  business  in  which 
you  take  a  concern)  to  attend.  But  what  will  you  say  to 
those  who  blame  me  for  supporting  Lord  Beauchamp^s 

20  bill,  as  a  disrespectful  treatment  of  your  petition,  when 
you  hear  that  out  of  respect  to  you,  I  myself  was  the 
cause  of  the  loss  of  that  very  bill  ?  For  the  noble  lord 
who  brought  it  in,  and  who,  I  must  say,  has  much  merit 
for  this  and  some  other  measures,  at  my  request  con- 

25  sented  to  put  it  off  for  a  week,  which  the  Speaker's  ill- 
ness lengthened  to  a  fortnight ;  and  then  the  frantic 
tumult  about  Popery  drove  that  and  every  rational 
business  from  the  House.  So  that  if  I  choose  to 
make  a  defence  of  myself  on  the  little  principles  of  a 

30  culprit  pleading  in  his  exculpation,  I  might  not  only 
secure  my  acquittal,  but  make  merit  with  the  opposers 
of  the  bill.  But  I  sliall  do  no  such  thing.  The  truth  is, 
that  I  did  occasion  the  loss  of  the  bill,  and  by  a  delay 
caused  by  my  respect  to  you.     But  such  an  event  was 

35  never  in  my  contemplation.     And  I  am  so  far  from  taking 


Speech  at  Bristol,  105 

credit  for  the  defeat  of  that  measure,  that  I  cannot  suffi- 
ciently lament  my  misfortune,  if  but  one  man  who  ought 
to  be  at  large,  has  passed  a  year  in  prison  by  my  means. 
I  am  a  debtor  to  the  debtors.  I  confess  judgment.  I 
owe  what,  if  ever  it  be  in  my  power,  I  shall  most  cer-  6 
tainly  pay,  —  ample  atonement  and  usurious  amends  to 
liberty  and  humanity  for  my  unhappy  lapse.  For,  gen- 
tlemen, Lord  Beauchamp's  bill  was  a  law  of  justice  and 
policy,  as  far  as  it  went ;  I  say  as  far  as  it  went,  for  its 
fault  was  its  being,  in  the  remedial  part,  miserably  10 
defective. 

There  are  two  capital  faults  in  our  law  with  relation 
to  civil  debts.  One  is,  that  every  man  is  presumed 
solvent  —  a  presumption,  in  innumerable  cases,  directly 
against  truth.  Therefore  the  debtor  is  ordered,  on  a  15 
supposition  of  ability  and  fraud,  to  be  coerced  his 
liberty  until  he  makes  payment.  By  this  means,  in 
all  cases  of  civil  insolvency,  without  a  pardon  from  his 
creditor,  he  is  to  be  imprisoned  for  life ;  —  and  thus  a 
miserable,  mistaken  invention  of  artificial  science  oper-  20 
ites  to  change  the  civil  into  a  criminal  judgment,  and 
to  scourge  misfortune  or  indiscretion  with  a  punishment 
which  the  law  does  not  inflict  on  the  greatest  crimes. 

The  next  fault  is,  that  the  inflicting  of  that  punish- 
ment is  not  on  the  opinion  of  an  equal  and  public  judge ;  25 
but  is  referred  to  the  arbitrary  discretion  of  a  private, 
nay  interested  and  irritated,  individual.     He  who  for- 
nmlly  is,  and  substantially  ought  to  be,  the  judge,  is  in 
reality  no  more  than  ministerial,  a  mere  executive  instru- 
ment of  a  private  man,  who  is  at  once  judge  and  party.  30 
Kvery  idea  of  judicial  order  is  subverted  by  this  pro- 
cedure.    If  the  insolvency  be  no  crime,  why  is  it  pun- 
ished with  arbitrary  imprisonment  ?     If  it  be  a  crime, 
why  is  it  delivered  into  private  hands  to  pardon  with- 
out discretion,  or  to  punish  without  mercy  and  without  35 
measure  ? 


106  Burke. 

To  these  faults,  gross  and  cruel  faults  in  our  law,  the 
excellent  principle  of  Lord  Beauchamp's  bill  applied 
some  sort  of  remedy.  I  know  that  credit  must  be  pre- 
served;  but  equity  must  be  preserved  too;  and  it  is 
6  impossible  that  anything  should  be  necessary  to  com- 
merce which  is  inconsistent  with  justice.  The  princi- 
ple of  credit  was  not  weakened  by  that  bill.  God  for- 
bid !  The  enforcement  of  that  credit  was  only  put  into 
the  same  public  judicial  hands  on  which  we  dejjend  for 

10  our  lives,  and  all  that  makes  life  dear  to  us.  But,  indeed, 
this  business  was  taken  up  too  warmly  both  here  and  else- 
where. The  bill  was  extremely  mistaken.  It  was  sup- 
posed to  enact  what  it  never  enacted ;  and  complaints 
were  made  of  clauses  in  it  as  novelties,  which  existed 

15  before  the  noble  lord  that  brought  in  the  bill  was  born. 
There  was  a  fallacy  that  ran  through  the  whole  of  the 
objections.  The  gentlemen  who  opposed  the  bill  always 
argued,  as  if  the  option  lay  between  that  bill  and  the 
ancient  law.  —  But  this  is  a  grand  mistake.     For,  practi- 

20  cally,  the  option  is  between,  not  that  bill  and  the  old  law, 
but  between  that  bill  and  those  occasional  laws,  called 
Acts  of  Grace.  For  the  operation  of  the  old  law  is  so 
savage,  and  so  inconvenient  to  society,  that  for  a  long 
time  past,  once  in  every  Parliament,  and  lately  twice,  the 

25  legislature  has  been  obliged  to  make  a  general  arbitrary 
jail-delivery,  and  at  once  to  set  open,  by  its  sovereign 
authority,  all  the  prisons  in  England. 

Gentlemen,  I  never  relished  Acts  of  Grace ;  nor  ever 
submitted  to  them  but  from  despair  of  better.     They  are 

30  a  dishonorable  invention,  by  which,  not  from  humanity, 
not  from  policy,  but  merely  because  we  have  not  room 
enough  to  hold  these  victims  of  the  absurdity  of  our 
laws,  we  turn  loose  upon  the  public  three  or  four  thou- 
sand naked  wretches,  corrupted  by  the  habits,  debased  by 

35  the  ignominy,  of  a  prison.     If  the  creditor  had  a  right  to 


Speech  at  Bristol.  l<iT 

I  \io^(i  carcasses  as  a  natural  security  for  his  property,  I 
nil  sure  we  have  no  right  to  deprive  hira  of  that  security, 
r.ut  if  tlie  few  pounds  of  flesh  were  not  necessary  to  his 
security,  we  had  not  a  riglit  to  detaiji  the  unfortunate 
ilebtor,  without  any  benefit  at  all  to  the  person  who  con-  5 
lined  him.  Take  it  as  you  will,  we  commit  injustice. 
Xow  Lord  Beauchamp's  bill  intended  to  do  deliberately, 
iind  with  great  caution  and  circumspection,  upon  each 
several  case,  and  with  all  attention  to  the  just  claimant, 
what  Acts  of  Grace  do  in  a  much  greater  measure,  and  10 
with  very  little  care,  caution,  or  deliberation. 

I  susi>ect  that  here  too,  if  we  contrive  to  oppose  this 
bill,  we  shall  be  found  in  a  struggle  against  the  nature  of 
things.  For,  as  we  grow  enlightened,  the  public  will  not 
lii'ar,  for  any  length  of  time,  to  pay  for  the  maintenance  15 

f  whole  armies  of  prisoners,  nor,  at  their  own  expense, 
.-ubmit  to  keep  jails  as  a  sort,  of  garrisons,  merely  to  for- 
tify the  absurd  principle  of  making  men  judges  in  their 
own  cause.     For  credit  has  little  or  no  concern  in  this 
'  ruelty.     I  speak  in  a  commercial  assembly.     You  know  20 
iiat  credit  is  given,  because  capital  must  be  employed; 
iliat  men  calculate  the  chances  of  insolvency;  and  they 
•  ither  withhold  the  credit,  or  make  the  debtor  pay  the 
risk  in  the  price.     The  counting-house  has  no  alliance 
with  the  jail.     Holland  understands  trade  as  well  as  we,  25 
and  she  has  done  much  more  than  this  obnoxious  bill  in- 
ttMided  to  do.     There  was  not,  when  Mr.  Howard  visited 
Holland,  more  than  one  prisoner  for  debt  in  the  great 
ity   of   Rotterdam.     Although  Lord  Beauchamp's  Act 
which  was  previous  to  this  bill,  and  intended  to  feel  the  30 
.ay  for  it)  has  already  preserved  liberty  to  thousands, 

I I  id  though  it  is  not  three  years  since  the  last  Act  of 
' ;  i-ace  passed,  yet  by  Mr.  Howard's  last  account,  there 
were  near  three  thousand  again  in  jaiL  I  cannot  name 
this  gentleman  without  remarking  that  his  labors  and  35 


108  Burke. 

.  writings  have  done  much  to  open  the  eyes  and  hearts  of 
mankind.  He  has  visited  all  Europe, —  not  to  survey 
the  sumptuousness  of  palaces,  or  the  stateliness  of  tem- 
ples ;  not  to  make  accurate  measurements  of  the  remains 
5  of  ancient  grandeur,  nor  to  form  a  scale  of  the  curiosity 
of  modem  art;  not  to  collect  medals,  or  collate  manu- 
scripts :  —  but  to  dive  into  the  depths  of  dungeons ;  to 
plunge  into  the  infection  of  hospitals ;  to  survey  the 
mansions  of  sorrow  and  pain ;  to  take  the  gauge  and  di- 

10  mensions  of  misery,  depression,  and  contempt ;  to  re- 
member the  forgotten,  to  attend  to  the  neglected,  to  visit 
the  forsaken,  and  to  compare  and  collate  the  distresses  of 
all  men  in  all  countries.  His  plan  is  original ;  and  it  is 
as  full  of  genius  as  it  is  of  humanity.     It  was  a  voyag;e 

15  of  discovery ;  a  circumnavigation  of  charity.  Already 
the  benefit  of  his  labor  is  felt  more  or  less  in  every  coun- 
try; —  I  hope  he  will  anticipate  his  final  reward  by  seeing 
all  its  effects  fully  realized  in  his  own.  He  will  receive, 
not  by  detail,  but  in  gross,  the  reward  of  those  who  visit 

20  the  j)risoner ;  and  he  has  so  forestalled  and  monopolized 
this  branch  of  charity,  that  there  will  be,  I  trust,  little 
room  to  merit  by  such  acts  of  benevolence  hereafter. 

Nothing  now  remains   to  trouble   you  with   but   the 
fourth  charge  against  me  —  the  business  of  the  Koman 

25  Catholics.  It  is  a  business  closely  connected  with  the 
rest.  They  are  all  on  one  and  the  same  principle.  My 
little  scheme  of  conduct,  such  as  it  is,  is  all  arranged.  I 
could  do  nothing  but  what  I  have  done  on  this  subject, 
without  confounding  the  whole  train  of  my  ideas,  and 

30  disturbing  the  whole  order  of  my  life.  Gentlemen,  I 
ought  to  apologize  to  you  for  seeming  to  think  anything 
at  all  necessary  to  be  said  upon  this  matter.  The  calumny 
is  fitter  to  be  scrawled  with  the  midnight  chalk  of  incen- 
diaries, with  "  No  Popery,"  on  walls  and  doors  of  devoted 

35  houses,  than  to  be  mentioned  in  any  civilized  company.     I 


Speech  at  Bn'sfoL  109 

had  heard  that  the  spirit  ut  di.M  wnu hl  on  that  subject  was 
\  cry  prevalent  here.  With  pleasure  I  find  that  I  have 
been  grossly  misinformed.  If  it  exists  at  all  in  this  city, 
the  laws  have  crushed  its  exertions,  and  our  morals  have 
shamed  its  appearance  in  daylight.  I  have  pursued  this  5 
spirit  wherever  I  could  trace  it ;  but  it  still  fled  from  me. 
Tt  was  a  ghost  which  all  had  heard  of,  but  none  had  seen. 
None  would  acknowledge  that  he  thought  the  public  pro- 
ceeding with  regard  to  our  Catholic  dissenters  to  be 
blamable ;  but  several  were  sorry  it  had  made  an  ill  im-  lo 
pression  uix)n  others,  and  that  my  interest  was  hurt  by 
my  share  in  the  business.  I  find  with  satisfaction  and 
pride,  that  not  above  four  or  five  in  this  city  (and  I  dare 
say  these  misled  by  some  gross  misrepresentation)  have 
signed  that  symbol  of  delusion  and  bond  of  sedition,  that  15 
libel  on  the  national  religion  and  English  character,  the 
Vrotestant  Association.  It  is  therefore,  gentlemen,  not 
by  way  of  cure,  but  of  prevention,  and  lest  the  arts  of 
wicked  men  may  prevail  over  the  integrity  of  any  one 
amongst  us,  that  I  think  it  necessary  to  open  to  you  the  20 
merits  of  this  transaction  pretty  much  at  large;  and  I  beg 
your  patience  ujwn  it :  for,  although  the  reasonings  that 
have  been  used  to  depreciate  the  Act  are  of  little  force, 
;md  though  the  authority  of  the  men  concerned  in  this 
ill  design  is  not  very  imposing;  yet  the  audaciousness  25 
•  f  these  conspirators  against  the  national  honor,  and  the 
extensive  wickedness  of  their  attempts,  have  raised  per- 
sons of  little  im{K)rtance  to  a  degree  of  evil  eminence, 
1 1  id  imparted  a  sort  of  sinister  dignity  to  proceedings 
that  had  their  origin  in  only  the  meanest  and  blindest  ao 
malice. 

In  explaining  to  you  the  proceedings  of  Parliament 
is  hich  have  been  complained  of,  I  will  state  to  you,  first, 
the  thing  that  was  done ;  next,  the  persons  who  did  it ; 

id  lastly,  the  grounds  and  reasons  upon  which  the  25 


110  Burke, 

legislature  proceeded  in  this  deliberate  act  ui  public  jus- 
tice and  public  prudence. 

Gentlemen,  the  condition  of  our  nature  is  such,  that 
we  buy  our  blessings  at  a  price.  The  Reformation,  one 
5  of  the  greatest  periods  of  human  improvement,  was  a 
time  of  trouble  and  confusion.  The  vast  structure  of 
superstition  and  tyranny,  which  had  been  for  ages  in 
rearing,  and  which  was  combined  with  the  interest  of  the 
great  and  of  the  many,  which  was  moulded  into  the  laws, 

10  the  manners,  and  civil  institutions  of  nations,  and  blended 
•with  the  frame  and  policy  of  states,  could  not  be  brought 
to  the  ground  without  a  fearful  struggle ;  nor  could  it  fall 
without  a  violent  concussion  of  itself  and  all  about  it. 
When  this  great  revolution  was  attempted  in  a  more 

16  regular  mode  by  government,  it  was  opj)osed  by  plots 
and  seditions  of  the  people ;  when  by  popular  efforts,  it 
was  repressed  as  rebellion  by  the  hand  of  power;  and 
bloody  executions  (often  bloodily  returned)  marked  the 
whole  of  its  progress  through  all  its  stages.     The  affairs 

20  of  religion,  which  are  no  longer  heard  of  in  the  tumult  of 
our  present  contentions,  made  a  principal  ingredient  in 
the  wars  and  politics  of  that  time ;  the  enthusia.sm  of 
religion  threw  a  gloom  over  the  politics;  and  political 
interests   poisoned  and  perverted  the  spirit  of   religion 

25  upon  all  sides.  The  Protestant  religion  in  that  violent 
struggle,  infected,  as  the  Popish  had  been  before,  by 
worldly  interests  and  worldly  passions,  became  a  perse- 
cutor in  its  turn,  —  sometimes  of  the  new  sects,  which 
carried  their  o\vti  principles  further  than  it  was  conveni- 

30  ent  to  the  original  reformers,  and  always  of  the  body 
from  whom  they  parted;  —  and  this  persecuting  spirit 
arose,  not  only  from  the  bitterness  of  retaliation,  but 
from  the  merciless  policy  of  fear. 

It  was  long  before  the  spirit  of  true  piety  and  true  wis- 

35  dom,  involved  in  the  principles  of  the  Reformation,  could 


Speech  at  Bristol.  Ill 

Ih'  dopuiult'tl  from  the  divgs  aiul  ieiuleuce  of  the  conten- 
tion with  which  it  was  carried  through.  However,  until 
this  be  done, the  Reformation  is  not  complete;  and  those 
who  think  themselves  good  Protestants,  from  their  ani- 
mosity to  others,  are  in  that  respect  no  Protestants  at  all.  6 
It  was  at  first  thought  necessary,  perhaps,  to  oppose  to 
Poi)ery  another  Popery,  to  get  the  l)etter  of  it.  What- 
ever was  the  cause,  laws  were  made  in  many  countries, 
fuid  in  this  kingdom  in  particular,  against  Papists,  wliich 
ire  as  bloody  as  any  of  those  which  had  been  enacted  by  lo 
tlie  Popisli  princes  and  states;  and  where  those  laws 
were  not  bloody,  in  my  opinion  they  were  worse ;  as 
they  were  slow,  cruel  outrages  on  our  nature,  and  kept 
men  alive  only  to  insult  in  their  persons  every  one  of 
the  rights  and  feelings  of  humanity.  I  pass  those  15 
statutes,  l)ecause  I  would  spare  your  pious  ears  the 
repetition  of  such  shocking  things ;  and  I  come  to  that 
l)articular  law,  the  repeal  of  which  has  produced  so 
many  unnatural  and  unexi)ected  consequences. 

A  stfitute  was  fabricated  in  the  year  1699,  by  which  the  20 
saying  mass  (a  church-service  in  the  Latin  tongue,  not 
exactly  the  same  as  our  liturg)%  but  very  near  it,  and 
containing  no  offence  whatsoever  against  the  laws,  or 
1.,'ainst  gmnl  morals)  was  forged  into  a  crime  punishable 
with  ])erpetual  imprisonment.  The  teaching  school,  a  25 
useful  and  virtuous  occupation,  even  the  teaching  in  a 
private  family,  was  in  every  Catholic  subjected  to  the 
same  unprojjortioned  punishment.  Your  industry,  and 
t  lie  bread  of  your  children,  was  taxed  for  a  pecuniary  re- 
ward to  stimulate  avarice  to  do  what  nature  refused,  to  30 
inform  and  prosecute  on  this  law.  Every  Roman  Catho- 
lic wjis,  under  the  same  Act,  to  forfeit  his  estate  to  his 
nearest  Protestant  relation,  until,  through  a  profession  of 
wliat  he  did  not  believe,  he  redeemed  by  his  hyixx-ri.sy 
what  the  law  had  transfen-ed  to  the  kinsmaii  as  the  rec-  35 


112  Burke, 

ompense  of  his  i)rofligacy.  AVhen  thus  turned  out  of 
doors  from  his  paternal  estate,  he  was  disabled  from  ac- 
quiring any  other  by  any  industry,  donation,  or  charity  ; 
but  was  rendered  a  foreigner  in  liis  native  land,  only  be- 

5  cause  he  retained  the  religion,  along  with  the  property, 
lianded  down  to  him  from  those  who  had  been  the  old 
inhabitants  of  that  land  before  him. 

Does  any  one  who  hears  me  approve  this  scheme  of 
things,  or  tliink  there  is  common  justice,  common  sense, 

10  or  common  honesty  in  any  part  of  it  ?  If  any  does,  let 
him  say  it,  and  I  am  ready  to  discuss  the  point  with 
temi)er  and  candor.  But  instead  of  approving,  I  perceive 
a  virtuous  indignation  beginning  to  rise  in  your  minds  on 
the  mere  cold  stating  of  the  statute. 

15  But  what  will  you  feel,  when  you  know  from  history 
how  this  statute  passed,  and  what  were  the  motives,  and 
what  the  mode  of  making  it  ?  A  party  in  this  nation, 
enemies  to  the  system  of  the  Revolution,  were  in  opposi- 
tion to  the  government  of  King  William.     They  knew 

20  that  our  glorious  deliverer  was  an  enemy  to  all  persecu- 
tion. They  knew  that  he  came  to  free  us  from  slavery 
and  Popery,  out  of  a  country  where  a  third  of  the  people 
are  contented  Catholics  under  a  Pi-otestant  government. 
He  came  with  a  part  of  his  army  composed  of  those  very 

25  Catholics,  to  overset  the  ix)wer  of  a  Popish  prince.  Such 
is  the  effect  of  a  tolerating  spirit ;  and  so  much  is  liberty 
served  in  every  way,  and  by  all  persons,  by  a  manly  ad- 
herence to  its  own  principles.  Whilst  freedom  is  true  to 
itself,   everything   becomes   subject  to  it ;  and  its  very 

30  adversaries  are  an  insti-ument  in  its  hands. 

The  party  I  speak  of  (like  some  amongst  us  who  would 
disparage  the  best  friends  of  their  country)  resolved  to 
make  the  King  either  violate  his  principles  of  toleration, 
or  incur  the  odium  of  protecting  Papists.      They  there* 

35  fore  brought  in  this  bill,  and  made  it  purposely  wicked 


Speech  at  Bristol  113 

and  absurd  that  it  might  be  rejected.  The  then  court- 
party,  discovering  their  game,  turned  the  tables  on  them, 
and  returned  their  bill  to  them  stuffed  with  still  greater 
absurdities,  that  its  loss  might  lie  upon  its  original  au- 
thors. They,  finding  their  own  ball  thrown  back  to  them,  6 
kicked  it  back  again  to  their  adversaries.  And  thus  this 
Act,  loaded  with  the  double  injustice  of  two  parties, 
neither  of  whom  intended  to  pass  what  they  hoped  the 
other  would  be  j^ersuaded  to  reject,  went  through  the  legis- 
lature, contrary  to  the  real  wish  of  all  parts  of  it,  and  lo 
of  all  the  parties  that  composed  it.  In  this  manner  these 
insolent  and  profligate  factions,  as  if  they  were  playing 
with  balls  and  counters,  made  a  sport  of  the  fortunes  and 
the  liberties  of  their  fellow-creatures.  Other  acts  of  j^er- 
secution  have  been  acts  of  malice.  This  was  a  subversion  15 
of  justice  from  wantonness  and  petulance.  Look  into 
the  History  of  Bishop  Burnet.  He  is  a  witness  without 
exception. 

The  effects  of  the  Act  have  been  as  mischievous  as 
its  origin  was  ludicrous  and  shameful.  From  that  time  20 
every  |)erson  of  that  communion,  lay  and  ecclesiastic,  has 
been  obliged  to  fly  from  the  face  of  day.  The  clergy, 
concealed  in  garrets  of  private  houses,  or  obliged  to  take 
a  shelter  (liardly  safe  to  themselves,  but  infinitely  dan- 
gerous to  their  country)  under  the  privileges  of  foreign  25 
Ministers,  officiated  as  their  servants,  and  under  their 
protection.  The  whole  body  of  the  Catholics,  condemned 
to  beggary  and  to  ignorance  in  their  native  land,  have 
been  obliged  to  learn  the  principles  of  letters,  at  the 
hazard  of  all  their  other  principles,  from  the  charity  of  30 
your  enemies.  They  have  been  taxed  to  their  ruin  at 
the  pleasure  of  necessitous  and  profligate  relations,  and 
according  to  the  measure  of  their  necessity  and  profli- 
gacy. Examples  of  tliis  are  many  and  affecting.  Sohie 
of  them  are  known  by  a  friend  wIjo  Rtands  near  me  in  35 


114  Burke. 

this  hall.  It  is  but  six  or  seven  years  since  a  clergyman 
of  the  name  of  Malony,  a  man  of  morals,  neither  guilty 
nor  accused  of  anything  noxious  to  the  state,  was  con- 
demned to  perpetual  imprisonment  for  exercising  the 
5  functions  of  his  religion  ;  and  after  lying  in  jail  two  or 
three  years,  was  relieved  by  the  mercy  of  government 
from  perpetual  imprisonment  on  condition  of  perpetual 
banishment.  A  brother  of  the  Earl  of  Shrewsbury,  a 
Talbot,  a  name  respectable  in  this  country  whilst  its 

10  glory  is  any  part  of  its  concern,  was  hauled  to  the  bar  of 
the  Old  Bailey  among  common  felons,  and  only  escaped 
the  same  doom,  either  by  some  error  in  the  process,  or 
that  the  wretch  who  brought  him  there  could  not  cor- 
rectly describe  his  person  —  I  now   forget   which.     In 

15  short,  the  persecution  would  never  have  relented  for  a 
moment,  if  the  judges,  superseding  (though  with  an  am- 
biguous example)  the  strict  rule  of  their  artificial  duty 
by  the  higher  obligation  of  their  conscience,  did  not  con- 
stantly throw  every  difficulty  in  the  way  of  such  inform- 

20  ers.  But  so  ineffectual  is  the  power  of  legal  evasion 
against  legal  iniquity,  that  it  was  but  the  other  day  that 
a  lady  of  condition,  beyond  the  middle  of  life,  was  on 
the  point  of  being  stripped  of  her  whole  fortune  by  a 
near  relation,  to  whom  she  had  been  a  friend  and  beue- 

25  factor ;  and  she  must  have  been  totally  ruined,  without 
a  power  of  redress  or  mitigation  from  the  courts  of  law, 
had  not  the  legislature  itself  rushed  in,  and  by  a  special 
Act  of  Parliament  rescued  her  from  the  injustice  of  its 
own  statutes.     One  of  the  Acts  authorizing  such  things 

30  was  that  which  we  in  part  repealed,  knowing  what  our 
duty  was,  and  doing  that  duty  as  men  of  honor  and  vir- 
tue, as  good  Protestants,  and  as  good  citizens.     Let  him 
stand  forth  that  disapproves  what  we  have  done  !       ^n: 
Gentlemen,  bad  laws  are  the  worst  sort  of  tyranny. 

35  In  such  a  country  as  this  they  are  of  all  bad  things  the 


Speei'Ji   at    Bristol .  115 

worst  —  worse  by  fur  tliiiii  anywhere  else ;  and  they  derive 
a  particular  malignity  even  from  the  wisdom  and  sound- 
ness of  the  rest  of  our  institutions.  For  very  obvious 
reasons  you  cannot  trust  the  Crown  with  a  dispensing 
power  over  any  of  your  laws.  However,  a  government,  6 
l)e  it  as  bad  as  it  may,  will,  in  the  exercise  of  a  discre- 
tionary power,  discriminate  times  and  persons ;  and  will 
not  ordinarily  pursue  any  man  when  its  own  safety  is 
not  concerned.  A  mercenary  informer  knows  no  dis- 
tinction. Under  such  a  system,  the  obnoxious  people  lO 
:ire  slaves,  not  only  to  the  government,  but  they  live  at 
tlie  mercy  of  every  individual;  they  are  at  once  the 
slaves  of  the  whole  community,  and  of  every  part  of  it ; 
and  the  worst  and  most  unmerciful  men  are  those  on 
whose  goodness  they  most  depend.  15 

In  this  situation  men  not  only  shrink  from  the  frowns 
of  a  stern  magistrate,  but  they  are  obliged  to  fly  from 
t  heir  very  species.  The  seeds  of  destruction  are  sown  in 
civil  intercourse,  in  social  habitudes.  The  blood  of  whole- 
some kindred  is  infected.  Their  tables  and  beds  are  20 
surrounded  with  snares.  All  thie  means  given  by  Provi- 
dence to  make  life  safe  and  comfortable  are  perverted 
into  instruments  of  terror  and  torment.  This  species  of 
universal  subserviency,  that  makes  the  very  servant  who 
waits  behind  your  chair  the  arbiter  of  your  life  and  for-  25 
tune,  has  such  a  tendency  to  degrade  and  abase  mankind, 
;nul  to  deprive  them  of  that  assured  and  liberal  state  of 
mind  which  alone  can  make  us  what  we  ought  to  be, 
that  I  vow  to  God  I  would  sooner  bring  myself  to  put  a 
man  to  immediate  death  for  opinions  I  disliked,  and  so  .to 
to  get  rid  of  the  man  and  his  opinions  at  once,  than  to 
fret  him  with  a  feverish  being,  tainted  with  the  jail-dis- 
temper of  a  contagious  servitude,  to  keep  him  above 
ground  an  animated  mass  of  putrt»faction,  corrupted  him- 
self, and  corrupting  all  al)out  him.  35 


116  Burke. 

The  Act  repealed  was  of  this  direct  tendency ;  and  it 
was  made  in  the  manner  which  I  have  related  to  you.  I 
will  now  tell  you  by  whom  the  bill  of  repeal  was  brought 
into  Parliament.  I  find  it  has  been  industriously  given 
5  out  in  this  city  (from  kindness  to  me,  unquestionably) 
that  I  was  the  mover  or  the  seconder.  The  fact  is,  I  did 
not  once  open  my  lips  on  the  subject  during  the  whole 
progress  of  the  bilL  I  do  not  say  this  as  disclaiming  my 
share  in  that  measure.     Very  far  from  it.     I  inform  you 

10  of  this  fact,  lest  I  should  seem  to  arrogate  to  myself  the 
merits  which  belong  to  others.  To  have  been  the  man 
chosen  out  to  redeem  our  fellow-citizens  from  slavery, 
to  purify  our  laws  from  absurdity  and  injustice,  and  to 
cleanse  our  religion  from  the  blot  and  stain  of  persecu- 

15  tion,  would  be  an  honor  and  happiness  to  which  my 
wishes  would  undoubtedly  aspire ;  but  to  whicli  nothing 
but  my  wishes  could  possibly  have  entitled  me.  That 
great  work  was  in  hands  in  every  respect  far  l)etter  qual- 
ified than  mine.     The  mover  of  the  bill  was  Sir  George 

20  Savile. 

When  an  act  of  great  and  signal  humanity  was  to  be 
done,  and  done  with  all  the  weight  and  authority  that 
belonged  to  it,  the  world  could  cast  its  eyes  upon  none 
but  him.     I  hoi)e  that  few  things  which  have  a  tendency 

25  to  bless  or  to  adorn  life  have  wholly  escaped  my  obser- 
vation in  my  passage  through  it.  I  have  sought  the 
acquaintance  of  that  gentleman,  and  have  seen  liim  in  all 
situations.  He  is  a  true  genius ;  with  an  understanding 
vigorous,  and  acute,  and  refined,  and  distinguisliing  even 

30  to  excess,  and  illuminated  with  a  most  unbounded,  pecu- 
liar, and  original  cast  of  imagination.  With  these  he 
possesses  many  external  and  instrumental  advantages, 
and  he  makes  use  of  them  all.  His  fortune  is  among  the 
largest ;  a  fortune  which,  wholly  unencumbered,  as  it  is, 

35  with  one  single  charge  from  luxury,  vanity,  or  excess, 


Spvceh  (ft  Bristol,  117 

sinks  under  the  benevolence  of  its  dispenser.  This  pri- 
vate benevolence,  expanding  itself  into  patriotism,  ren- 
ders his  whole  being  the  estate  of  the  public,  in  which 
he  has  not  reserved  a  peailium  for  himself  of  profit, 
diversion,  or  relaxation.  During  the  session  the  first  in  5 
and  the  last  out  of  the  House  of  Commons,  he  passes 
from  the  senate  to  the  camp ;  and  seldom  seeing  the  seat 
of  his  ancestors,  he  is  always  in  the  senate  to  serve  his 
country,  or  in  the  field  to  defend  it.  But  in  all  well- 
wrought  compositions  some  particulars  stand  out  more  10 
eminently  than  the  rest,  and  the  things  which  will  carry 
his  name  to  posterity  are  his  two  bills  —  I  mean  that  for 
a  limitation  of  the  claims  of  the  Crown  upon  landed 
estates,  and  this  for  the  relief  of  the  Roman  Catholics. 
By  the  former  he  has  emancipated  property ;  by  the  latter  15 
he  has  quieted  conscience;  and  by  both  he  has  taught 
that  grand  lesson  to  government  and  subject,  —  no  longer 
to  regard  each  other  as  adverse  parties. 

Such  was  the  mover  of  the  Act  that  is  complained  of 
by  men  who  are  not  quite  so  good  as  he  is ;  an  Act  most  20 
assuredly  not  brought  in  by  him  from  any  partiality  to 
tliat  sect  which  is  the  object  of  it.  For,  among  his  faidts, 
I  i*eally  cannot  help  reckoning  a  greater  degree  of  preju- 
dice against  that  people  than  becomes  so  wise  a  man.  I 
know  that  he  inclines  to  a  sort  of  disgust,  mixed  with  a  25 
considerable  degree  of  asperity,  to  the  system ;  and  he 
has  few,  or  rather  no  habits  with  any  of  its  jirofessors. 
What  he  has  done  was  on  quite  other  motives.  The  mo- 
tives were  these,  which  he  declared  in  his  excellent 
speech  on  his  motion  for  the  bill;  namely,  his  extreme  30 
zeal  to  the  Protestant  religion,  which  he  thought  utterly 
disgraced  by  the  Act  of  1699,  and  his  rooted  hatred  to 
all  kind  of  oppression,  under  any  color,  or  upon  any  pre- 
tence whatsoever. 

The  seconder  was  worthy  of  the  mover,  and  of  the  35 


118  Burke, 

motion.  I  was  not  the  seconder;  it  was  Mr.  Dunning, 
Recorder  of  this  city.  I  sliall  say  the  less  of  him, 
because  his  near  relation  to  you  makes  you  more  par- 
ticularly acquainted  with  his  merits.  But  I  should 
6  appear  little  acquainted  with  them,  or  little  sensible 
of  them,  if  I  could  utter  his  name  on  this  occasion 
without  expressing  my  esteem  for  his  character.  I  am 
not  afraid  of  offending  a  most  learned  body,  and  most 
jealous  of  its  reputation  for  that  learning,  when  I  say  he 

10  is  the  first  of  his  profession.  It  is  a  jx)int  settled  by 
those  who  settle  everything  else :  and  I  must  add  (what 
I  am  enabled  to  say  from  my  own  long  and  close  obser- 
vation) that  there  is  not  a  man  of  any  profession,  or  in 
any  situation,  of  a  more  erect  and  independent  spirit ;  of 

15  a  moi-e  proud  honor ;  a  more  manly  mind ;  a  more  firm 
and  determined  integrity.  Assure  yourselves,  that  the 
names  of  two  such  men  will  bear  a  great  load  of  preju- 
dice in  the  other  scale  before  they  can  be  entirely  out- 
weighed. 

20  With  this  mover  and  this  seconder  agreed  the  whole 
House  of  Commons;  the  whole  House  of  Lords;  the 
whole  bench  of  bishops;  the  King;  the  Ministry;  the 
Opposition;  all  the  distinguished  clergy  of  the  estab- 
lisliment;   all   the  eminent  lights   (for  they  were   con- 

25  suited)  of  the  dissenting  churches.  This  according 
voice  of  national  wisdom  ought  to  be  listened  to 
with  reverence.  To  say  that  all  these  descriptions  of 
Englishmen  unanimously  concurred  in  a  scheme  for 
introducing  the  Catholic  religion,  or  that  none  of  them 

30  understood  the  nature  and  effects  of  what  they  were 
doing  so  well  as  a  few  obscure  clubs  of  people  whose 
names  you  never  heard  of,  is  shamelessly  absurd. 
Surely  it  is  paying  a  misei*able  compliment  to  the 
religion   we   profess,   to   suggest   that   everything    emi- 

35  nent  in  the  kingdom  is  indifferent,  or  even  adverse,  to 


Speech  at  Briatol.  119 

that  religion,  and  that  its  security  is  wliolly  abandoned 
to  the  zeal  of  those  who  have  nothing  but  their  zeal  to 
distinguish  them.  In  weighing  this  unanimous  concur- 
rence of  whatever  the  nation  has  to  b(jast  of,  I  lioj^  you 
will  recollect  that  all  these  concurring  parties  do  by  no  5 
means  love  one  another  enough  to  agree  in  any  point 
which  was  not  both  evidently  and  importantly  right. 

To  prove  this ;  to  prove  that  the  measure  was  both 
clearly  and  materially  proper,  I  will  next  lay  before ,you, 
as  I  promised,  the  political  grounds  and  reasons  for  the  lo 
rei)eal  of  that   penal   statute,  and  the   motives  to   its 
rej)eal  at  that  particular  time. 

Gentlemen,  America — when  the  English  nation  seemed 
to  be  dangerously,  if  not  irrecoverably,  divided;  when 
one,  and  that  the  most  growing  branch,  was  torn  from  i"> 
the  parent  stock,  and  ingrafted  on  the  power  of  France,  a 
great  terror  fell  upon  this  kingdom.  On  a  sudden  we 
awakened  from  our  dreams  of  conquest,  and  saw  ourselves 
threatened  with  an  immediate  invasion,  wlrich  we  were 
at  that  time  very  ill  prepared  to  resist.  You  rememl>er  20 
the  cloud  that  gloomed  over  us  all.  In  that  hour  of  our 
dismay,  from  the  bottom  of  the  hiding-places  into  which 
the  indiscriminate  rigor  of  our  statutes  had  driven  them, 
came  out  the  body  of  the  Roman  Catholics.  They  aj)- 
jieared  before  the  steps  of  a  tottering  throne  with  one  of  25 
the  most  sober,  measured,  steady,  and  dutiful  addresses 
that  was  ever  presented  to  the  Crown.  It  was  no  holiday 
ceremony ;  no  anniversary  comj)liment  of  parade  and 
show.  It  was  signed  by  almost  every  gentleman  of  that 
l)ersuasion,  of  note  or  property,  in  England.  At  such  a  30 
crisis,  nothing  but  a  decided  resolution  to  stand  or  fall 
with  their  country  could  have  dictated  such  an  address, 
the  direct  tendency  of  which  was  to  cut  off  all  retreat, 
and  to  render  them  peculiarly  obnoxious  to  an  invader  of 
their  own  communion.     The  address  showed  what  I  long  35 


120  Burke. 

languished  to  see,  that  all  the  subjects  of  England  had 
cast  off  all  foreign  views  and  connections,  and  that  every 
man  looked  for  his  relief  from  every  grievance  at  the 
hands  only  of  his  own  natural  government. 
5  It  was  necessary,  on  our  part,  that  the  natural  govern- 
ment should  show  itself  worthy  of  that  name.  It  was 
necessary,  at  the  crisis  I  si)eak  of,  that  the  supreme 
jx)wer  ^f  the  state  should  meet  the  conciliatory  disposi- 
tions of  the  subject.     To  delay  protection  would  be  to  re- 

10  ject  allegiance.  And  why  should  it  be  rejected,  or  even 
coldly  and  suspiciously  received  ?  If  any  independent 
Catholic  state  should  choose  to  take  part  with  this  king- 
dom in  a  war  with  France  and  Spain,  that  bigot  (if  sucli 
a  bigot  could  be  found)  would  be  heard  with  little  res- 

15  i^ect,  who  could  dream  of  objecting  his  religion  to  an 
ally  "^om  the  nation  would  not  only  receive  with  its 
freest  thanks,  but  purchase  with  the  last  remains  of  its 
exl^austed  treasure.  To  such  an  ally  we  should  not  dare 
to  whisper  a  -eingle  syllable  of  those  base  and  invidious 

20  topics  upon  which  some  unhappy  men  would  persuade  the 
state  to  reject  the  duty  and  allegiance  of  its  own  mem- 
bers. Is  it  then  because  foreigners  are  in  a  condition  to 
set  our  malice  at  defiance,  that  with  them  we  are  willing 
to  contract  engagements  of  friendship,  and  to  keep  tliem 

25  with  fidelity  and  honor ;  but  that,  because  we  conceive 
some  descriptions  of  our  countrymen  are  not  powerful 
enough  to  punish  our  malignity,  we  will  not  permit  them 
to  support  our  common  interest  ?  Is  it  on  that  ground 
that  our  anger  is  to  he  kindled  by  their  offered  kindness  ? 

30  Is  it  on  that  ground  that  they  are  to  be  subjected  to 
penalties,  because  they  are  willing,  by  actual  merit,  to 
purge  themselves  from  imputed  crimes  ?  Lest  by  an  ad- 
herence to  the  cause  of  their  country  they  should  acquire 
a  title  to  fair  and  equitable  treatment,  are  we  resolved  to 

35  furnish  them  with  causes  of  eternal  enmity  ;  and  rather 


Spfifch  at  Bristol,  121 

supply  thi'iii  with  jll^sl  antl  founded  motives  to  disaffec- 
tion, tlian  not  to  have  tliat  disaffection  in  existence  to 
justify  an  oppression,  which,  not  from  policy,  but  disposi- 
tion, we  have  predetermined  to  exercise  ? 

"What  shadow  of  reason  could  be  assigned,  why,  at  a  ft 
time  when  the  most  Protestant  part  of  this  Protestant 
empire  found  it  for  its  advantage  to  unite  with  the  two 
principal  Popish  states,  to  unite  itself  in  the  closest  bonds 
with  France  and  Sjmn,  for  our  destruction,  that  we  should 
refuse  to  unite  with  our  own  Catholic  countrymen  for  our  10 
own  preservation  ?     Ought  we,  like  madmen,  to  tear  off 
the   plasters   that  the   lenient  hand  of    prudence  had 
spread  over  the  wounds  and  gashes  which  in  our  de- 
lirium of  ambition  we  had  given  to  our  own  body  ?    No 
I)erson  ever  reprobated  the  American  war  more  than  I  15 
did,  and  do,  and  ever  shall.     But  I  never  will  consent 
that  we  should  lay  additional  voluntary  penalties  on  our- 
selves for  a  fault  which  carries  but  too  much  of  its  own 
punishment  in  its  own  nature.     For  one,  I  was  delighted 
with  the  pro{X)sal  of  internal  peace.    I  accepted  the  bless-  20 
ing  with  thankfulness  and  transport ;  I  was  truly  happy 
to  find  one  good  effect  of  our  civil  distractions,  that  they 
had  put  an  end  to  all  religious  strife  and  heart-burning 
in  our  o^vn  bowels.     What  must  be  the  sentiments  of  a 
man  who  would  wish  to  perpetuate  domestic  hostility  26 
when  the  causes  of  dispute  are  at  an  end,  and  who,  cry- 
ing out  for  pe;u!e  with  one  part  of  the  nation  on  the  most 
humiliating  terms,  should  deny  it  to  those  who  offer 
friendship  without  any  terms  at  all  ? 

But  if  I  was  unable  to  reconcile  such  a  denial  to  the  30 
contracted  principles  of  local  duty,  what  answer  could  I 
give  to  the  broad  claims  of  general  humanity  ?  I  confess 
to  you  freely  that  the  sufferings  and  distresses  of  the 
people  of  America,  in  this  cruel  war,  have  at  times  af- 
fected me  more  deeply  than  I  can  express.     I  felt  every  35 


122  Burke. 

-"^Gazette  of  triumph' as  a  blow  upon  my  heart,  which  has 
an  hundred  times  sunk  and  fainted  within  me  at  all  the 
mischiefs  brought  upon  those  who  bear  the  whole  brunf 

^  of  war  in  the  heart  of  their  country.  Yet  the  Americans 
5  are  utter  strangers  to  me ;  a  nation  among  whom  I  am 
not  sure  that  I  have  a  single  acquaintance.  Was  I  to 
suffer  my  mind  to  be  so  unaccountably  warj)ed ;  was  I 
to  keep  such  iniquitous  weights  and  measures  of  temper 
and  of  reason,  as  to  sympathize  with  those  who  are  in 

10  open  relx*llion  against  an  authority  which  I  resi>ect,  at 
war  with  a  country  which  by  every  title  ought  to  be,  and 
is,  most  dear  to  me  ;  and  yet  to  have  no  feeling  at  all  for 
the  hardships  and  indignities  suffered  by  men  who,  by 
their  very  vicinity,  are  bound  up  in  a  nearer  relation  to 

15  us ;  who  contribute  their  share,  and  more  than  their 
share,  to  the  common  prosperity  ;  who  perform  the  com- 
mon offices  of  social  life,  and  who  obey  the  laws,  to  the 
full  as  well  as  I  do  ?  Gentlemen,  the  danger  to  the 
state  being  out  of  the  question  (of  which,  let  me  tell 

20  you,  statesmen  themselves  are  apt  to  have  but  too  ex- 
quisite a  sense),  I  could  assign  no  one  reason  of  justice, 
jx)licy,  or  feeling,  for  not  concurring  most  cordially,  as 
most  cordially  I  did  concur,  in  softening  some  part  of 
that   shameful   servitude   under   which   several   of    my 

25  worthy  fellow-citizens  were  groaning. 

Important  effects  followed  this  act  of  wisdom.  They 
appeared  at  home  and  abroad  to  the  great  benefit  of  this 
kingdom ;  and,  let  me  hope,  to  the  advantage  of  man- 
kind at  large.     It  betokened  union  among  ourselves.     It 

30  showed  soundness,  even  on  the  part  of  the  persecuted, 
which  generally  is  the  weak  side  of  every  community. 
But  its  most  essential  operation  was  not  in  England. 
The  Act  was  immediately,  though  very  imperfectly, 
copied  in  Ireland ;  and  this  imperfect  transcript  of  an 

35  imperfect  Act,  this  first  faint  sketch  of  toleration,  which 


Speech  at  Bristol,  123 

(lid  little  more  than  disclose  a  principle,  and  mark  out  a 
disposition,  completed  in  a  most  wonderful  manner  the 
re-union  to  the  state  of  all  the  Catholics  of  that  country. 
It  made  us  what  we  ought  always  to  have  been,  one 
family,  one  body,  one  heart  and  soul,  against  the  family  6 
combination,  and  all  other  combinations,  of  our  enemies. 
We  have  indeed  obligations  to  that  people  who  received 
such  small  benefits  with  so  much  gratitude,  and  for 
which  gratitude  and  attachment  to  us,  I  am  afraid  they 
have  suffered  not  a  little  in  other  places.  10 

I  dare  say  you  have  all  heard  of  the  privileges  indulged 
to  the  Irish  Catholics  residing  in  Spain.  You  have  like- 
wise heard  with  what  circumstances  of  severity  they  have 
been  lately  expelled  from  tlie  seaports  of  that  kingdom, 
driven  into  the  inland  cities,  and  there  detained  as  a  15 
sort  of  prisoners  of  state.  I  have  good  reason  to  believe 
that  it  was  the  zeal  to  our  government  and  our  cause 
(somewliat  indiscreetly  expressed  in  one  of  the  addresses 
of  the  Catholics  of  Ireland)  which  has  thus  drawn  down 
on  their  heads  the  indignation  of  the  court  of  Madrid,  to  20 
the  inexpressible  loss  of  several  individuals,  and  in  fu- 
ture, perhaps,  to  the  great  detriment  of  the  whole  of 
their  body.  Now  that  our  people  should  be  persecuted 
in  Spain  for  their  attachment  to  this  country,  and  perse- 
cuted in  this  country  for  their  supposed  enmity  to  us,  is  26 
such  a  jarring  reconciliation  of  contradictory  distresses  — 
is  a  thing  at  once  so  dreadful  and  ridiculous  —  that  no 
malice  short  of  diabolical  would  wish  to  continue  any 
human  creatures  in  such  a  situation.  But  honest  men 
will  not  forget  either  their  merit  or  their  sufferings.  30 
There  are  men  (and  many,  I  trust,  there  are)  who,  out  of 
love  to  their  country  and  their  kind,  would  torture  their 
invention  to  find  excuses  for  the  mistakes  of  their  breth- 
ren, and  who,  to  stifle  dissension,  would  construe  even 
doubtful  appearances  with  the  utmost  favor ;  such  men  35 


124  Burke, 

will  never  persuade  themselves  to  be  ingenious  and  re- 
fined in  discovering  disaffection  and  treason  in  the  mani- 
fest, palj)able  signs  of  suffering  loyalty.  Persecution  is 
so  unnatural  to  them  that  they  gladly  snatch  the  very 
6  first  opportunity  of  laying  aside  all  the  tricks  and  devices 
of  i)enal  politics,  and  of  returning  home,  after  all  their 
irksome  and  vexatious  wanderings,  to  our  natural  family 
mansion,  to  the  grand  social  principle  that  unites  all 
men,  in  all  descriptions,  under  the  shadow  of  an  equal 

10  and  impartial  justice. 

Men  of  another  sort,  I  mean  the  bigoted  enemies  to 
liberty,  may  perhaps,  in  their  politics,  make  no  account 
of  the  good  or  ill  affection  of  the  Catholics,  of  England, 
who  are  but  a  handful  of  people  (enough  to  torment,  but 

15  not  enough  to  fear),  perhaps  not  so  many,  of  both  sexes 
and  of  all  ages,  as  fifty  thousand.  But,  gentlemen,  it  is 
possible  you  may  not  know  that  the  people  of  that  per- 
suasion in  Ireland  amount  at  least  to  sixteen  or  seventeen 
hundred  thousand  souls.     I  do  not  at  all  exaggerate  the 

20  number.  A  Nation  to  be  persecuted  !  "Whilst  we  were 
masters  of  the  sea,  embodied  with  America,  and  in  alli- 
ance with  half  the  powers  of  the  continent,  we  might 
perhaps,  in  that  remote  comer  of  Europe,  afford  to 
tyrannize  with  impunity.     But  there  is  a  revolution  in 

25  our  affairs  which  makes  it  prudent  to  be  just.  In  our 
late  awkward  contest  with  Ireland  about  trade,  had  reli- 
gion been  thrown  in  to  ferment  and  imbitter  the  mass  of 
discontents,  the  consequences  might  have  been  truly 
dreadful ;   but,  very  happily,  that  cause  of  quarrel  was 

30  previously  quieted  by  the  wisdom  of  the  Acts  I  am  com- 
mending. 

Even  in  England,  where  I  admit  the  danger  from  the 
discontent  of  that  persuasion  to  be  less  than  in  Ireland ; 
yet  even  here,  had  we  listened  to  the  counsels  of  fanati- 

35  cism  and  folly,  we  might  have  wounded  ourselves  very 


Spci'>'h   at    lirisfol.  125 

deei)ly,  and  wounded  ourselves  iu  a  very  tender  part. 
You  are  apprised  that  the  Catholics  of  England  consist 
mostly  of  our  best  manufacturers.  Had  the  legislature 
chosen,  instead  of  returning  their  declarations  of  duty 
with  correspondent  good-will,  to  drive  them  to  despair,  5 
there  is  a  country  at  their  very  door  to  which  they 
would  be  invited,  a  country  in  all  respects  as  good  as 
ours,  and  with  the  finest  cities  in  the  world  ready  built 
to  receive  them.  And  thus  the  bigotry  of  a  free  country, 
antl  in  an  enlightened  age,  would  have  repeopled  the  10 
cities  of  Flanders,  which,  in  the  darkness  of  two  hundred 
years  ago,  had  been  desolated  by  the  superstition  of  a 
crutd  tyrant.  Our  manufacturers  were  the  growth  of 
the  i>ers(*cutions  in  the  Low  Countries.  What  a  spec- 
tacle would  it  be  to  Europe  to  see  us  at  this  time  of  day  15 
balancing  the  account  of  tyranny  with  those  very  coun- 
tries, and  by  our  persecutions  driving  back  trade  and 
manufacture,  as  a  sort  of  vagabonds,  to  their  original 
settlement !  But  I  trust  we  shall  be  saved  this  last  of 
disgi-aces.  20 

So  far  as  to  the  effect  of  the  Act  on  the  interest  of  this 
nation.  With  regard  to  the  interests  of  mankind  at  large 
I  am  sure  the  benefit  was  very  considerable.  Long  before 
this  Act,  indeed,  the  spirit  of  toleration  began  to  gain 
ground  in  Europe.  In  Holland,  the  third  part  of  the  25 
I)eoi)le  are  Catliolics;  they  live  at  ease,  and  are  a  sound 
part  of  the  State.  In  many  parts  of  Germany,  Protest- 
ants and  Papists  partake  the  same  cities,  the  same  coun- 
cils, and  even  the  same  churches.  The  unbounded  liber- 
ality of  the  King  of  Pnissia's  conduct  on  this  occasion  is  30 
known  to  all  the  world ;  and  it  is  of  a  piece  with  the 
other  grand  maxims  of  his  reign.  The  magnanimity  of 
the  imperial  court,  breaking  through  the  narrow  prin- 
ciples of  its  predecessors,  has  indulged  its  l^rotestant 
subjects  —  not  only  with  proi)erty,  with  worship,  with  «5 


126  Burke. 

liberal  education — but  with  honors  and  trusts,  both  civil 
and  military.  A  worthy  Protestant  gentleman  of  this 
country  now  fills,  and  fills  with  credit,  a  high  office  in 
the  Austrian  Netherlands.  Even  the  Lutheran  obstinacy 
6  of  Sweden  has  thawed  at  length,  and  opened  a  toleration 
to  all  religions.  I  know  myself  that  in  France  the  Pro- 
testants begin  to  be  at  rest.  The  army,  which  in  that 
country  is  everything,  is  open  to  them ;  and  some  of  the 
military  rewards  and  decorations  which  the  laws  deny, 

10  are  supplied  by  others  to  make  the  service  acceptable 
and  honorable.  The  first  Minister  of  Finance  in  that 
country  is  a  Protestant.  Two  years^  war  without  a  tax 
is  among  the  first-fruits  of  their  liberality.  Tarnished  as 
the  glory  of  this  nation  is,  and  as  far  as  it  has  waded  into 

is  the  shades  of  an  eclipse,  some  beams  of  its  former  illumi- 
nation still  play  ujwn  its  surface ;  and  what  is  done  in 
England  is  still  looked  to  as  argument  and  as  example. 
It  is  certainly  true  that  no  law  of  this  country  ever  met 
with  such  universal  applause  abroad,  or  was  so  likely  to 

20  produce  the  perfection  of  that  tolerating  spirit,  which,  as 
I  observed,  has  been  long  gaining  ground  in  Europe ;  for 
abroad,  it  was  universally  thought  that  we  had  done  what, 
I  am  sorry  to  say,  we  had  not;  they  thought  we  had 
granted  a  full  toleration.     That  opinion  was,  however, 

25  so  far  from  hurting  the  Protestant  cause  that  I  declare, 
with  the  most  serious  solemnity,  my  firm  belief  that  no 
one  thing  done  for  these  fifty  years  past  was  so  likely 
to  prove  deeply  beneficial  to  our  religion  at  large  as 
Sir  George  Savile's  act.     In  its  effects  it  was  "an  Act 

30  for  tolerating  and  protecting  Protestantism  throughout 
Europe ; "  and  I  hope  that  those  who  were  taking  steps  for 
the  quiet  and  settlement  of  our  Protestant  brethren  in 
other  countries  will,  even  yet,  rather  consider  the  steady 
equity  of  the  greater  and  better  part  of  the  people  of 

35  Great  Britain,  than  the  vanity  and  violence  of  a  few. 


Speech  at  Briatol.  127 

I  perceive,  gentlemen,  by  the  manner  of  all  about  me, 
that  you  look  with  horror  on  the  wicked  clamor  which 
has  been  raised  on  this  subject ;  and  that  instead  of  an 
apology  for  what  was  done,  you  rather  demand  from  me 
an  account  why  the  execution  of  the  scheme  of  tolerar  6 
tion  was  not  made  more  answerable  to  the  large  and 
lilxjral  grounds  on  which  it  was  taken  up  ?  The  ques- 
tion is  natural  and  proper ;  and  I  remember  tliat  a  great 
and  learned  magistrate,  distinguished  for  his  strong  and 
systematic  understanding,  and  who  at  that  time  was  a  lo 
meml)er  of  the  House  of  Commons,  made  the  same  objec- 
tion to  the  proceeding.  The  statutes,  as  they  now  stand, 
are,  without  doubt,  perfectly  absurd.  But  I  beg  leave  to 
explain  the  cause  of  this  gross  imperfection  in  the  toler- 
ating plan,  as  well  and  as  shortly  as  I  am  able.  It  w^as  15 
universally  thought  that  the  session  ought  not  to  pass 
over  without  doing  something  in  this  business.  To  re- 
vise the  whole  body  of  the  penal  statutes  was  conceived 
to  be  an  object  too  big  for  the  time.  The  penal  statute, 
therefore,  which  was  chosen  for  repeal  (chosen  to  show  20 
our  disi)osition  to  conciliate,  not  to  perfect  a  toleration) 
was  this  Act  of  ludicrous  cruelty,  of  which  I  have  just 
given  you  the  history.  It  is  an  Act  which,  though  not 
by  a  great  deal  so  fierce  and  bloody  as  some  of  the  rest, 
was  infinitely  more  ready  in  the  execution.  It  was  the  26 
Act  which  gave  the  greatest  encouragement  to  those  pests 
of  s(Xiiety,  mercenary  informers  and  interested  disturbers 
of  household  peace ;  and  it  was  observed  with  truth  that 
the  prosecutions,  either  carried  to  conviction  or  com- 
pounded, for  many  years,  had  been  all  commenced  upon  30 
that  Act.  It  was  said  that,  whilst  we  were  delil)erating 
on  a  more  perfect  scheme,  the  spirit  of  the  age  would 
never  come  up  to  the  execution  of  the  statutes  which 
remained,  esj)ecially  as  more  steps,  and  a  cooperation  of 
more  minds  and  powers  were  required  towards  a  mischiev-  as 


128  Burke. 

oils  use  of  them,  than  for  the  execution  of  the  Act  to  be 
repealed  ;  that  it  was  better  to  unravel  this  texture  from 
below  than  from  above,  beginning  with  the  latest,  which, 
in  general  practice,  is  the  severest  evil.     It  was  alleged 

6  that  this  slow  proceeding  would  be  attended  with  the  ad- 
vantage of  a  progressive  experience ;  and  that  the  people 
would  grow  reconciled  to  toleration,  when  they  should 
find  by  the  effects  that  justice  was  not  so  irreconcilable 
an  enemy  to  convenience  as  they  had  imagined. 

10  These,  gentlemen,  were  the  reasons  why  we  left  this 
good  work  in  the  rude,  unfinished  state  in  which  good 
works  are  commonly  left  through  the  tame  circumspec- 
tion with  which  a  timid  prudence  so  frequently  enervates 
beneficence.     In  doing  good,  we  are  generally  cold,  and 

15  languid,  and  sluggish ;  and  of  all  things  afraid  of  being 
too  much  in  the  right,  l^ut  the  works  of  malice  and 
injustice  are  quite  in  another  style.  They  are  finished 
with  a  bold,  masterly  hand,  touched  as  they  are  with  the 
spirit  of  those  vehement  passions  that  call  forth  all  our 

20  energies  whenever  we  oppress  and  persecute. 

Thus  this  matter  was  left  for  the  time,  with  a  full 
determination  in  Parliament  not  to  suffer  other  and 
worse  statutes  to  remain  for  the  purpose  of  counteracting 
the  benefits  proposed  by  the  repeal  of  one  penal  law ; 

25  for  nobody  then  dreamed  of  defending  what  was  done 
for  a  benefit,  on  the  ground  of  its  being  no  benefit  at 
all.     We  were  not  then  ripe  for  so  mean  a  subterfuge. 

I  do  not  wish  to  go  over  the  horrid  scene  that  was 
afterwards  acted.     Would  to  God  it  could  be  expunged 

30  forever  from  the  annals  of  this  country !  But  since  it 
must  subsist  for  our  shame,  let  it  subsist  for  our  instruc- 
tion. In  the  year  1780,  there  were  found  in  this  nation 
men  deluded  enough  (for  I  give  the  whole  to  their  de- 
lusion), on  pretences  of  zeal  and  piety,  without  any  soii; 

35  of  provocation  whatsoever,  real  or  pretended,  to  make  a 


Speech  at  BrUtol  129 

dt\si)crate  attempt,  which  would  have  consumed  all  the 
glory  and  power  of  this  country  in  the  flames  of  London, 
and  buried  all  law,  order,  and  religion  under  the  ruins 
of  the  metropolis  of  the  Protestant  world.  Whether  all 
this  mischief  done,  or  in  the  direct  train  of  doing,  was  in  6 
their  original  scheme,  I  cannot  say  —  I  hope  it  was  not ; 
but  this  would  have  been  the  unavoidable  consequence 
of  their  j)roceedings  had  not  the  flames  they  had  lighted 
up  in  their  fury  been  extinguished  in  their  blood. 

All  the  time  that  this  horrid  scene  was  acting  or  lo 
avenging,  as  well  as  for  sometime  before,  and  ever  since, 
the  wicked  instigators  of  this  unhappy  multitude,  guilty, 
with  every  aggravation,  of  all  their  crimes,  and  screened 
in  a  cowardly  darkness  from  their  punishment,  continued 
without  interruption,  pity,  or  remorse,  to  blow  up  the  15 
blind  rage  of  the  populace  with  a  continued  blast  of 
pestilential  libels,  which  infected  and  poisoned  the  very 
air  we  breathed  in. 

The  main  drift  of  all  the  libels,  and  all  the  riots,  was 
to  force  Parliament  (to  persuade  us  was  hopeless)  into  20 
an  act  of  national  perfidy  which  has  no  example.  For, 
gentlemen,  it  is  proi)er  you  should  all  know  what  infamy 
we  escaped  by  refusing  that  repeal,  for  a  refusal  of 
wliich,  it  seems,  I,  among  others,  stand  somewhere  or 
otlier  accused.  When,  we  took  away,  on  the  motives  25 
which  I  had  the  honor  of  stating  to  you,  a  few  of  the 
innumerable  penalties  upon  an  oppressed  and  injured 
people,  the  relief  was  not  absolute,  but  given  on  a  stip 
ulation  and  compact  between  them  and  us ;  for  we  bound 
down  the  Roman  Catholics  with  the  most  solemn  oaths  30 
to  bear  true  allegiance  to  this  government,  to  abjure  all 
sort  of  temporal  jwwer  in  any  other,  and  to  renounce, 
under  the  same  solemn  obligations,  the  doctrines  of  sys- 
tematic perfidy  with  which  they  stood  (I  conceive  very 
unjustly)   charged.     Now  our  modest  petitioners  came  35 


130  Burke, 

up  to  us  most  humbly  praying  nothing  more  than  that 
we  should  break  our  faith,  without  any  one  cause  what- 
soever of  forfeiture  assigned ;  and  when  the  subjects  of 
this  kingdom  had,  on  their  part,  fully  performed  their 

6  engagement,  we  should  refuse,  on  our  part,  the  benefit 
we  had  stipulated  on  the  performance  of  those  very  con- 
ditions that  were  prescribed  by  our  own  authority,  and 
taken  on  the  sanction  of  our  public  faith  —  that  is  to  say, 
when  we  had  inveigled  them  with  fair  ])romises  within 

10  our  door,  we  were  to  shut  it  on  them ;  and,  adding  mock- 
ery to  outrage,  to  tell  them,  "  Now  we  have  got  you  fast ; 
your  consciences  are  bound  to  a  power  resolved  on  your 
destruction.  We  have  made  you  swear  that  your  reli- 
gion obliges  you  to  keep  your  faith :  fools  as  you  are  !  we 

16  will  now  let  you  see  that  our  religion  enjoins  us  to  keep 
no  faith  with  you."  They  who  would  advisedly  call 
upon  us  to  do  such  things  must  certainly  have  thought 
us  not  only  a  convention  of  treacherous  tyrants,  but  a 
gang  of  the  lowest  and  dirtiest  wretches  that  ever  dis- 

20  graced  humanity.  Had  we  done  this,  we  sliould  have 
indeed  proved  that  there  were  some  in  the  world  whom 
no  faith  could  bind ;  and  we  should  have  convicted  our- 
selves of  that  odious  principle  of  which  Papists  stood 
accused  by  those  very  savages  who  wished  us,  on  tliat 

26  accusation,  to  deliver  them  over  to  their  fury. 

In  this  audacious  tumult,  when  our  very  name  and 
character  as  gentlemen  was  to  be  cancelled  forever  along 
with  the  faith  and  honor  of  the  nation,  I,  who  had  ex- 
erted myself  very  little  on  the  quiet  passing  of  the  bill, 

30  thought  it  necessary  tlien  to  come  forward.  I  was  not 
alone ;  but  though  some  distinguished  members  on  all 
sides,  and  particularly  on  ours,  added  much  to  their  high 
reputation  by  the  part  they  took  on  that  day  —  a  part 
which  will  be  remembered  as  long  as  honor,  spirit,  and 

35  eloquence  have  estimation  in  the  world  —  I  may  and  will 


Speech  at  Bristol.  181 

value  myself  so  far  that,  yielding  in  abilities  to  many, 
I  yielded  in  zeal  to  none.  With  warmtli  and  with  vigor, 
and  animated  with  a  just  and  natural  indignation,  I 
called  forth  every  faculty  that  I  possessed,  and  I  directed 
it  in  every  way  in  which  I  could  possibly  employ  it.  I  5 
labored  night  and  day.  I  labored  in  Parliament ;  I  la- 
bored out  of  Parliament.  If  therefore  the  resolution 
of  the  House  of  Commons,  refusing  to  commit  this  act  of 
unmatched  turpitude,  be  a  crime,  I  am  guilty  among  the 
foremost.  But,  indeed,  whatever  the  faults  of  that  lO 
House  may  have  been,  no  one  member  was  found  hardy 
enough  to  propose  so  infamous  a  thing ;  and  on  full 
debate  we  passed  the  resolution  against  the  petitions 
with  as  much  unanimity  as  we  had  formerly  passed  the 
law  of  which  these  petitions  demanded  the  repeal.  15 

There  was  a  circumstance  (justice  will  not  suffer  me 
to  pass  it  over)  which,  if  anything  could  enforce  the 
reasons  I  have  given,  would  fully  justify  the  Act  of 
Relief,  and  render  a  repeal,  or  anything  like  a  repeal, 
unnatural,  impossible.  It  was  the  behavior  of  the  per-  20 
secuted  Roman  Catholics  under  the  acts  of  violence  and 
brutid  insolence  which  they  suffered.  I  suppose  there 
are  not  in  London  less  than  four  or  five  thousand  of  that 
'persuasion,  from  my  country,  who  do  a  great  deal  of  the 
most  laborious  works  in  the  metrojx)lis  ;  and  they  chiefly  25 
inhabit  those  quarters  which  were  the  principal  theatre 
of  the  fury  of  the  bigoted  multitude.  They  are  known 
to  be  men  of  strong  arms  and  quick  feelings,  and  more 
remarkable  for  a  determined  resolution  than  clear  ideas 
or  much  foresight.  But  though  provoked  by  everything  30 
that  can  stir  the  blood  of  men,  their  houses  and  chapels 
in  flames,  and  with  the  most  atrocious  profanations  of 
everything  which  they  hold  sacred  before  their  eyes,  not 
a  liand  was  moved  to  retaliate,  or  even  to  defend.  Had 
a  conflict  once  begun,  the  rage  of  their  persecutors  would  35 


132  Burke, 

have  redoubled.  Thus  fury  increasing  by  the  reverberar 
tion  of  outrages,  house  Ijeing  fired  for  house,  and  church 
for  chapel,  I  am  convinced  that  no  power  under  heaven 
could  have  prevented  a  general  conflagration  ;  and  at  tliis 

6  day  London  would  have  been  a  tale.  But  I  am  well 
informed,  and  the  thing  speaks  it,  that  their  clergy  ex- 
erted their  whole  influence  to  keep  their  people  in  such 
a  state  of  forbearance  and  quiet  as,  when  I  look  back, 
fills  me  with  astonishment;  but  not  with  astonishment 

10  only.  Their  merits  on  that  occiusion  ought  not  to  l)e  for- 
gotten; nor  will  they,  when  Englishmen  come  to  recollect 
themselves.  I  am  sure  it  were  far  more  proper  to  have 
called  them  forth,  and  given  them  the  tlianks  of  both 
Houses  of  Parliament,  than  to  have  suffered  those  worthy 

15  clergymen  and  excellent  citizens  to  be  hunted  into  holes 
and  corners,  whilst  we  are  making  low-minded  inquisi- 
tions into  the  number  of  their  people;  as  if  a  tolerating 
principle  was  never  to  prevail,  unless  we  were  very  sure 
that  only  a  few  could  possibly  take  advantage  of  it.    But 

20  indeed  we  are  not  yet  well  recovered  of  our  fright.  Our 
reason,  I  trust,  will  return  with  our  security;  and  this 
unfortunate  temper  will  pass  over  like  a  cloud. 

Gentlemen,  I  have  now  laid  before  you  a  few  of  the 
reasons  for  taking  away  the  penalties  of  the  Act  of  1699, 

25  and  for  refusing  to  establish  them  on  the  riotous  requisi- 
tion of  1780.  Because  I  would  not  suffer  anytliing  which 
may  be  for  your  satisfaction  to  escape,  permit  me  just  to 
touch  on  the  objections  urged  against  our  act  and  our 
resolves,  and  intended  as  a  justification  of  the  violence 

30  offered  to  both  Houses.  "Parliament,"  they  assert,  "was 
too  hasty,  and  they  ought,  in  so  essential  and  alarming 
a  cliange,  to  have  jn-oceeded  with  a  far  greater  degree  of 
deliberation."  The  direct  contrary.  Parliament  was  too 
slow.      They  took  fourscore  years  to  deliberate  on  the 

35  repeal  of  an  Act  which  ought  not  to  have  survived  a 


Speech  at  Briatol,  138 

second  session.  When  at  length,  after  a  procrastination 
of  near  a  century,  the  business  was  taken  up,  it  proceeded 
in  the  most  public  manner,  by  the  ordinary  stages,  and 
as  slowly  as  a  law  so  evidently  right  as  to  be  resisted 
by  none  would  naturally  advance.  Had  it  been  read  three  6 
times  in  one  day  we  should  have  shown  only  a  becoming 
readiness  to  recognize,  by  protection,  the  undoubted  duti- 
ful behavior  of  those  whom  we  had  but  too  long  punished 
for  offences  of  presumption  or  conjecture.  But  for  what 
end  was  that  bill  to  linger  beyond  the  usual  period  of  an  10 
unoi)posed  measure  ?  Was  it  to  be  delayed  until  a  rab- 
ble in  Edinburgh  should  dictate  to  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land what  measure  of  persecution  was  fitting  for  her 
safety?  Was  it  to  be  adjourned  until  a  fanatical  force 
could  be  collected  in  London  sufficient  to  frighten  us  out  15 
of  all  our  ideas  of  policy  and  justice?  Were  we  to  wait 
for  the  profound  lectures  on  the  reason  of  state,  ecclesi- 
astical and  ix)litical,  which  the  Protestant  Association 
have  since  condescended  to  read  to  us?  Or  were  we, 
seven  hundred  Peers  and  Commoners,  the  only  persons  20 
ignorant  of  the  ribald  invectives  which  occupy  the  place 
of  argument  in  those  remonstrances,  which  every  man  of 
common  observation  had  heard  a  thousand  times  over, 
and  a  thousand  times  over  had  despised  ?  All  men  had 
before  heard  what  they  have  to  say ;  and  all  men  at  this  26 
day  know  what  they  dare  to  do;  and,  I  trust,  all  honest 
men  are  equally  influenced  by  the  one,  and  by  the  other. 
But  they  tell  us  that  those  our  fellow-citizens  whose 
chains  we  have  a  little  relaxed,  are  enemies  to  liberty 
and  our  free  Constitution.  Not  enemies,  I  presume,  to  30 
their  own  liberty.  And  as  to  the  Constitution,  until  we 
give  them  some  share  in  it,  I  do  not  know  on  what  pre- 
tence we  can  examine  into  their  opinions  al)out  a  bus- 
iness in  which  they  have  no  interest  or  concern,  l^ut 
after  all,  arc  we  equally  sure  that  they  are  adverse  to  as 


134  Burke. 

our  Constitution,  as  that  our  statutes  are  hostile  and 
destructive  to  them?  For  my  part,  I  have  reason  to 
believe  their  opinions  and  inclinations  in  that  respect 
are  various,  exactly  like  those  of  other  men ;  and  if  they 
5  lean  more  to  the  Crown  than  I  and  than  many  of  you 
think  we  ought,  we  must  remember  that  he  who  aims  at 
another's  life  is  not  to  be  surprised  if  he  flies  into  any 
sanctuary  that  will  receive  him.  The  tenderness  of  the 
executive  i)ower  is  the  natural  asylum  of  those  upon 

10  whom  the  laws  have  declared  war;  and  to  complain  that 
men  are  inclined  to  favor  the  means  of  their  own  safety 
is  so  absurd  that  one  forgets  the  injustice  in  the  ridi- 
cule. 

I  must  fairly  tell  you,  that,  so  far  as  my  principles  are 

16  concerned  —  principles  that  I  hope  will  only  depart  with 
my  last  breath  —  I  have  no  idea  of  a  liberty  unconnected 
with  honesty  and  justice.  Nor  do  I  believe  that  any 
good  constitutions  of  government,  or  of  freedom,  can 
find  it  necessary  for  their  security  to  doom  any  part  of 

20  the  people  to  a  permanent  slavery.  Such  a  constitution 
of  freedom,  if  such  can  be,  is  in  effect  no  more  than 
another  name  for  the  tyranny  of  the  strongest  faction ; 
and  factions  in  republics  have  been,  and  are,  full  as  capa- 
ble as  monarchs  of  the  most  cruel  oppression  and  injus- 

25  tice.  It  is  but  too  true  that  the  love,  and  even  the  very 
idea,  of  genuine  liberty  is  extremely  rare.  It  is  but  too 
true  that  there  are  many  whose  whole  scheme  of  free- 
dom is  made  up  of  pride,  perverseness,  and  insolence. 
They  feel  themselves  in  a  state  of  thraldom,  they  ima- 

30  gine  that  their  souls  are  cooped  and  cabined  in,  unless 
they  have  some  man,  or  some  body  of  men,  dependent 
on  their  mercy.  This  desire  of  having  some  one  below 
them  descends  to  those  who  are  the  very  lowest  of  all, 
—  and  a  Protestant  cobbler,  debased  by  his  poverty,  but 

35  exalted  by  his  share  of  the  ruling  church,  feels  a  pride 


Speech  at  Bristol,  135 

ill  knowing  it  is  by  his  generosity  alone  that  the  peer, 
whose  footman's  instep  he  measures,  is  able  to  keep  his 
chaplain  from  a  jail.  This  disposition  is  the  true  source 
of  the  passion  which  many  men,  in  very  humble  life, 
have  taken  to  the  American  war.  Our  subjects  in  Amer-  6 
ica ;  our  Colonies  ;  our  dependents.  This  lust  of  party 
power  is  the  liberty  they  hunger  and  thirst  for ;  and 
this  siren  song  of  ambition  has  charmed  ears  that  one 
would  have  thought  were  never  organized  to  that  sort  of 
music.  10 

This  way  of  proscribing  the  citizens  by  denominations 
and  general  descriptions,  dignified  by  the  name  of  rea- 
son of  state  and  security  for  constitutions  and  common- 
wealths, is  nothing  better,  at  bottom,  than  the  miserable 
invention  of  an  ungenerous  ambition,  which  would  fain  15 
hold  the  sacred  trust  of.  power  without  any  of  the  vir- 
tues or  any  of  the  energies  that  give  a  title  to  it:  a 
receipt  of  policy  made  up  of  a  detestable  compound  of 
malice,  cowardice,  and  sloth.  They  would  govern  men 
against  their  will ;  but  in  that  government  they  would  20 
Ik^  discharged  from  the  exercise  of  vigilance,  providence, 
and  fortitude;  and  therefore,  that  they  may  sleep  on 
their  watch,  they  consent  to  take  some  one  division  of 
the  society  into  partnership  of  the  tyranny  over  the  rest. 
But  let  government,  in  what  form  it  may  be,  comprehend  25 
the  whole  in  its  justice,  and  restrain  the  suspicious  by 
its  vigilance  ;  let  it  keep  watch  and  ward ;  let  it  discover 
by  its  sagacity,  and  punish  by  its  firmness,  all  delin- 
quency against  its  power,  whenever  delinquency  exists 
in  the  overt  acts ;  and  then  it  will  be  as  safe  as  ever  God  30 
and  nature  intended  it  should  be.  Crimes  are  the  acts 
of  individuals,  and  not  of  denominations  ;  and  therefore 
arbitrarily  to  class  men  under  general  descriptions  in 
order  to  proscribe  and  punish  them  in  the  lump  for  a 
presumed  delinquency,  of  which  perhaps  but  a  part,  S5 


136  Burke, 

perhaps  none  at  all,  are  guilty,  is  indeed  a  compendious 
method,  and  saves  a  world  of  trouble  about  proof; 
but  such  a  method,  instead  of  being  law,  is  an  act  of 
unnatural  rebellion  against  the  legal  dominion  of  reason 

6  and  justice ;  and  this  vice,  in  any  constitution  that  en- 
tertains it,  at  one  time  or  other  will  certainly  bring  on 
its  ruin. 

We  are  told  that  this  is  not  a  religious  persecution; 
and  its  abettors  are  loud  in  disclaiming  all  severities  on 

10  account  of  conscience.  Very  fine  indeed !  Then  let  it  be 
so :  they  are  not  persecutors ;  they  are  only  tyrants.  With 
all  my  heart.  I  am  ^jerfectly  indifferent  concerning  the 
pretexts  ui)on  which  we  torment  one  another ;  or  whether 
it  be  for  the  Constitution  of  the  Church  of  England,  or 

15  for  the  Constitution  of  the  State  of  England,  that  people 
choose  to  make  their  fellow-cyeatures  wretched.  When 
we  were  sent  into  a  place  of  authority,  you  that  sent  us 
had  yourselves  but  one  commission  to  give.  You  could 
give  us  none  to  wrong  or  oppress,  or  even  to  suffer  any 

20  kind  of  oppression  or  wrong,  on  any  grounds  whatso- 
ever ;  not  on  j)olitical,  as  in  the  affairs  of  America ;  not 
on  commercial,  as  in  those  of  Ireland ;  not  in  civil,  as  in 
the  laws  for  debt ;  not  in  religiofis,  as  in  the  statutes 
against  Protestant  or  Catholic  dissenters.     The  diversi- 

25  fied  but  connected  fabric  of  universal  justice  is  well 
cramped  and  bolted  together  in  all  its  parts ;  and,  de- 
pend upon  it,  I  never  have  employed,  and  I  never  shall 
employ,  any  engine  of  power  which  may  come  into  my 
hands  to  wrench  it  asunder.     All  shall  stand,  if  I  can 

30  help  it,  and  all  shall  stand  connected.  After  all,  to 
complete  this  work  much  remains  to  be  done;  much 
in  the  East,  much  in  the  West.  But,  great  as  the 
work  is,  if  our  will  be  ready,  our  powers  are  not  defi- 
cient. 

35      Since  you  have  suffered  me  to  trouble  you  so  much  on 


Speech  at  Bristol.  137 

this  subject,  permit  me,  gentlemen,  to  detain  you  a  little 
longer.  I  am  indeed  most  solicitous  to  give  you  perfect 
satisfaction.  I  find  there  are  some  of  a  better  and  softer 
nature  than  the  persons  with  whom  I  have  supposed  my- 
self in  debate,  who  neither  think  ill  of  the  Act  of  Relief,  5 
nor  by  any  means  desire  the  repeal ;  yet  who,  not  accus- 
ing but  lamenting  what  was  done,  on  account  of  the  con- 
sequences, have  frequently  expressed  their  wish  that 
the  late  Act  had  never  been  made.  Some  of  this  des- 
cription, and  pereons  of  worth,  I  liave  met  with  in  this  lO 
city.  They  conceive  that  the  prejudices,  whatever  they 
might  be,  of  a  large  part  of  the  people  ought  not  to  have 
been  shocked ;  that  their  opinions  ought  to  have  been 
previously  taken,  and  much  attended  to;  and  that 
thereby  the  late  horrid  scenes  might  have  been  pre- 15 
vented. 

I  confess  my  notions  are  widely  different,  and  I  never 
was  less  sorry  for  any  action  of  my  life.  I  like  the  bill 
the  better  on  account  of  the  events  of  all  kinds  that  fol- 
lowed it.  It  relieved  the  real  sufferers ;  it  strengthened  20 
the  state ;  and,  by  the  disorders  tliat  ensued,  we  had  clear 
evidence  that  there  lurked  a  temper  somewhere  which 
ought  not  to  be  fostered  by  the  laws.  No  ill  consequences 
whatever  could  be  attributed  to  the  Act  itself.  We 
knew  beforehand,  or  we  were  poorly  instructed,  that  tol-  25 
eration  is  odious  to  the  intolerant ;  freedom  to  oppressors ; 
property  to  robbers ;  and  all  kinds  and  degrees  of  pros- 
perity to  the  envious.  We  knew  that  all  these  kinds  of 
men  woidd  ghidly  gratify  their  evil  dispositions  under 
the  sanction  of  law  and  religion  if  they  coukl ;  if  they  ao 
could  not,  yet,  to  make  way  to  their  objects,  they  would 
do  their  utmost  to  subvert  all  religion  and  all  law.  Tliis 
we  certainly  knew  but,  knowing  this,  is  there  any  rea- 
son, because  thieves  break  in  and  steal,  and  thus  bring 
detriment  to  you,  aii'l  'l'-'^^-  vii"  <'?»  t''"">-"i'"s,  tliat  I  35 


138  Burke. 

am  to  be  sorry  that  you  are  in  the  possession  of  shops, 
and  of  warehouses,  and  of  wholesome  laws  to  protect 
them  ?  Are  you  to  build  no  houses  because  desperate 
men  may  pull  them  down  upon  their  own  heads  ?  Or,  if 
5  a  malignant  wretch  will  cut  his  own  throat  because  he 
sees  you  give  alms  to  the  necessitous  and  deserving,  shall 
his  destmction  be  attributed  to  your  charity,  and  not  to 
his  own  deplorable  madness  ?  If  we  repent  of  our  good 
actions,  what,  I  pray  you,  is  left  for  our  faults  and  fol- 
io lies  ?  It  is  not  the  beneficence  of  the  laws ;  it  is  the 
unnatural  temj>er,  which  beneficence  can  fret  and  sour, 
that  is  to  be  lamented.  It  is  this  temper  which,  by  all 
rational  means,  ought  to  be  sweetened  and  corrected.  If 
fro  ward  men  should  refuse  this  cure,  can  they  vitiate 
16  anything  but  themselves  ?  Does  evil  so  react  upon  good 
as  not  only  to  retard  its  motion,  but  to  change  its  nature  ? 
If  it  can  so  operate,  then  good  men  will  always  be  in  the 
power  of  the  bad ;  and  virtue,  by  a  dreadful  reverse  of 
order,  must  lie  under  perpetual  subjection  and  bondage 
20  to  vice. 

As  to  the  opinion  of  the  people,  which  some  think,  in 
such  cases,  is  to  be  implicitly  obeyed. — Nearly  two  years' 
tranquillity  which  followed  the  Act,  and  its  instant  imi- 
tation in  Ireland,  proved  abundantly  tliat  the  late  liorri- 
25  ble  spirit  was,  in  a  great  measure,  the  effect  of  insidious 
art,  and  perverse  industry,  and  gross  misrepresentation. 
But  suppose  that  the  dislike  had  been  much  more  delib- 
erate   and  much  more  general  than  I  am  persuaded  it 
was.      When  we  know  that  the  opinions   of  even  the 
30  greatest  multitudes  are  the  standard  of  rectitude,  I  shall 
think  myself  obliged  to  make  those  opinions  the  masters 
of  my  conscience  ;   but  if   it  may  be   doubted  whether 
Omnipotence  itself   is  competent  to  alter  the   essential 
constitution  of  right  and  wrong,  sure  I   am  that   such 
35  thinr/s  as  they  and  I  are  possessed  of  no  such  power. 


Speech  at  Bristol  130 

No  man  carries  further  thaa  I  do  the  policy  of  making 
government  pleasing  to  the  people ;  but  the  widest  range 
of  this  ixjlitic  complaisance  is  confined  within  the  limits 
of  justice.  I  would  not  only  consult  the  interest  of  the 
j)eople,  but  I  would  cheerfully  gratify  their  humors.  We  5 
are  all  a  soi-t  of  children  that  must  be  soothed  and  man- 
aged. I  tliink  I  am  not  austere  or  formal  in  my  nature. 
I  would  bear,  I  would  even  myself  play  my  part  in,  any 
innocent  buffooneries  to  divert  them ;  but  I  never  will 
act  the  tyrant  for  their  amusement.  If  they  will  mix  10 
malice  in  their  sports,  I  shall  never  consent  to  throw 
tliem  any  living  sentient  creature  whatsoever,  no,  not  so 
much  as  a  kitling,  to  torment. 

"  But,  if  I  profess  all  this  impolitic  stubbornness,  I  may 
chance  never  to  be  elected  into  Parliament."  It  is  cer- 15 
tainly  not  pleasing  to  be  put  out  of  the  public  service ; 
but  I  wish  to  be  a  member  of  Parliament  to  have  my 
share  of  doing  good  and  resisting  evil.  It  would  there- 
fore be  absurd  to  renounce  my  objects  in  order  to  obtain 
my  seat.  I  deceive  myself  indeed  most  grossly  if  I  had  20 
not  much  rather  pass  the  remainder  of  my  life  hidden  in 
the  recesses  of  the  deepest  obscurity,  feeding  my  mind 
even  with  the  visions  and  imaginations  of  such  things, 
than  to  be  jdaced  on  the  most  sjdendid  throne  of  the 
universe,  tantiilized  with  a  denial  of  the  practice  of  all  25 
which  can  make  the  greatest  situation  any  other  than  the 
greatest  curse.  Gentlemen,  I  have  had  my  day.  I  can 
never  sufficiently  express  my  gratitude  to  you  for  having 
set  me  in  a  jilace  wherein  I  could  lend  the  slightest  help 
to  great  and  laudable  designs.  If  I  have  had  my  share  30 
in  any  measure  giving  quiet  to  private  property  and 
j)rivate  conscience  ;  if  by  my  vote  I  have  aided  in  secur- 
ing to  families  the  best  possession,  peace ;  if  I  have  joined 
in  reconciling  kings  to  their  subjects,  and  subjects  to 
thoir  i>rinc(' ;    if  I  liave  assisted  to  loosen  the   foreign  35 


140  Burke. 

holdings  of  the  citizen,  and  taught  him  to  look  for  his 
protection  to  the  laws  of  his  country,  and  for  his  comfort 
to  the  good-will  of  his  countrymen ;  if  I  have  thus  taken 
my  part  with  the  best  of  men  in  the  best  of  their  actions, 
6  I  can  shut  the  book  —  I  might  wish  to  read  a  page  or  two 
more,  but  this  is  enough  for  my  measure  —  I  have  not 
lived  in  vain. 

And  now,  gentlemen,  on  this  serious  day,  when  I  come, 
as  it  were,  to  make  up  my  account  with  you,  let  me  take 

10  to  myself  some  degree  of  honest  pride  on  the  nature  of 
the  charges  that  are  against  me.  I  do  not  here  stand 
before  you  accused  of  venality,  or  of  neglect  of  duty.  It 
is  not  said  that,  in  the  long  i)eriod  of  my  service,  I  have 
in  a  single  instance  sacrificed  the  slightest  of  your  inter- 

15  ests  to  my  ambition,  or  to  my  fortune.  It  is  not  alleged 
that,  to  gratify  any  anger  or  revenge  of  my  own  or  of 
my  party,  I  have  had  a  share  in  wronging  or  oppressing 
any  description  of  men,  or  any  one  man  in  any  descrip- 
tion.    No !  the  charges  against  me  are  all  of  one  kind : 

20  that  I  have  pushed  the  principles  of  general  justice  and 
benevolence  too  far,  further  than  a  cautious  policy  would 
warrant,  and  further  than  the  opinions  of  many  would 
go  along  with  me.  In  every  accident  which  may  happen 
througli   life  —  in   pain,    in   sorrow,   in   depression,  and 

25  distress  —  I  will  caU  to  mind  this  accusation,  and  be 
comforted. 

Grentlemen,  I  submit  the  whole  to  your  judgment.  Mr. 
Mayor,  I  thank  you  for  the  trouble  you  have  taken  on 
this  occasion ;  in  your  state  of  health,  it  is  particularly 

30  obliging.  If  this  company  should  tliink  it  advisable  for 
me  to  withdraw,  I  shall  respectfully  retire ;  if  you  think 
otherwise,  I  shall  go  directly  to  the  Council-house  and 
to  the  'Change,  and,  without  a  moment's  delay,  begin  my 
canvass. 


LORD    ERSKINE. 


IN     BEHALF    OF    JOHN    STOCKDALE    WHEN    TRIED     FOR 
LIBEL   ON    THE   HOUSE   OF   COMMONS;    COURT   OF 
THE   KINO*8   BENCH,    DECEMBER   9,   1789. 


Gentlemen  of  the  Jury,  —  Mr.  Stockdale,  who  is 
brought  as  a  criminal  before  you  for  the  publication  of 
this  book,  has,  by  employing  me  as  his  advocate,  reposed 
what  must  appear  to  many  an  extraordinary  degree  of 
confidence ;  since,  although  he  well  knows  that  I  am  per-  5 
sonally  connected  in  friendship  with  most  of  those  whose 
conduct  and  opinions  are  principally  arraigned  by  its 
autlior,  he  nevertheless  commits  to  my  hands  his  defence 
and  justification. 

From  a  trust  apparently  so  delicate  and  singular,  van- 10 
ity  is  but  too  apt  to  whisi)er  an  api)lication  to  some  fan- 
cied merit  of  one's  own ;  but  it  is  proper,  for  the  honor 
of  the  English  bar,  that  the  world  should  know  that  such 
things  happen  to  all  of  us  daily,  and  of  course ;  and  that 
tlie  defendant,  without  any  knowledge  of  me,  or  any  con- 15 
lidence  that  was  personal,  was  only  not  afraid  to  follow 
up  an  accidental  retainer  from  the  knowledge  he  has  of 
the  general  character  of  the  profession.     Happy  indeed 
is  it  for  this  countrj'  that,  whatever  interested  divisions 
may  characterize  other  places  of  which  I  may  have  oc-  20 
casion  to  six;ak  to-day,  however  the  counsels  of  the  high- 
est departments  of  the  state  may  be  occasionally  distracted 

141 


142  Ursktne. 

by  personal  considerations,  they  never  enter  these  walls 
to  disturb  the  administration  of  justice ;  whatever  may 
be  our  public  principles  or  the  private  habits  of  our 
lives,  they  never  cast  even  a  shade  across  the  path  of 

5  our  professional  duties.  If  this  be  the  characteristic 
even  of  the  bar  of  an  English  court  of  justice,  what  sacred 
impartiality  may  not  every  man  expect  from  its  jurors 
and  its  bench  ? 

As,  from  the  indulgence  which  the  Court  was  yesterday 

10  pleased  to  give  to  my  indisposition,  this  information  was 
not  proceeded  on  when  you  were  attending  to  try  it,  it 
is  probable  you  were  not  altogether  inattentive  to  what 
passed  at  the  trial  of  the  other  indictment,  prosecuted 
also  by  the  House  of  Commons ;  and  therefore,  without 

15  a  restatement  of  the  same  principles,  and  a  similar  quo- 
tation of  authorities  to  8up|X)rt  them,  I  need  only  remind 
you  of  the  law  applicable  to  this  subject,  as  it  was  then 
admitted  by  the  Attorney-General,  in  concession  to  ray 
propositions,  and  confirmed  by  the  higher  authority  of 

20  the  Court ;  viz.. 

First,  that  every  information  or  indictment  must  con- 
tain such  a  description  of  the  crime  that  the  defendant 
may  know  what  crime  it  is  which  he  is  called  upon  to 
answer. 

25  Secondly,  that  the  jury  may  appear  to  be  warranted  in 
their  conclusion  of  guilty  or  not  guilty. 

And,  lastly,  that  the  court  may  see  such  a  precise  and 
definite  transgression  upon  the  record,  as  to  be  able  to 
apply  the  punishment  which  judicial  discretion  may  dic- 

30  tate,  or  which  positive  law  may  inflict. 

It  was  admitted  also  to  follow  as  a  mere  corollary  from 
these  propositions,  that  where  an  information  charges  a 
writing  to  be  composed  or  published  of  and  concerning 
the  Commons  of  Great  Britain,  with  an  intent  to  bring 

35  that  body  into  scandal  and  disgrace  with  the  public,  the 


In  the  Stockdale  Case,  143 

author  cannot  be  brought  within  the  scope  of  such  a 
charge  unless  the  jury,  on  examination  and  comparison 
of  the  whole  matter  written  or  published,  shall  be  satis- 
tied  that  the  particular  passages  charged  as  criminal, 
when  explained  by  the  context,  and  considered  as  part  6 
of  one  entire  work,  were  meant  and  intended  by  the 
author  to  vilify  the  House  of  Commons  as  a  bodrjy  and 
were  written  of  and  concerning  them  in  Parliament 
assembled. 

These  principles  being  settled,  we  are  now  to  see  what  10 
the  present  information  is. 

It  charges  that  the  defendant  —  "  unlawfully,  wickedly, 
and  maliciously  devising,  contriving,  and  intending  to 
asperse,  scandalize,  and  vilify  the  Commons  of  Great 
Britain  in  Parliament  assembled ;  and  most  wickedly  is 
and  audaciously  to  represent  their  proceedings  as  corrupt 
and  unjust ;  and  to  make  it  believed  and  thought  as  if 
the  Commons  of  Great  Britain  in  Parliament  assembled, 
were  a  most  wicked,  tyrannical,  base,  and  comipt  set  of 
persons,  and  to  bring  them  into  disgrace  with  the  pub-  20 
lie  "  —  the  defendant  published  —  what  ?  Not  those 
latter  ends  of  sentences  which  the  Attorney-General  has 
read  from  his  brief,  as  if  they  had  followed  one  another 
in  order  in  this  book ;  not  those  scraps  and  tails  of  pas- 
sages which  are  patched  together  ujwn  this  record,  and  25 
pronounced  in  one  breath,  as  if  they  existed  without  in- 
termediate matter  in  the  same  page,  and  without  context 
anywhere.  No !  This  is  not  the  accusation,  even  muti- 
lated as  it  is :  for  the  information  charges  that,  with  in- 
tention to  vilify  the  House  of  Commons,  the  defendant  30 
published  the  whole  book,  describing  it  on  the  record  by 
its  title :  "  A  Keview  of  the  principal  Charges  against 
Warren  Hastings,  Esq.,  late  Governor-General  of  Bengal ; " 
in  which,  among  other  things,  the  matter  particularly 
selected  is  to  be  foiiiid.     Your  inquiry,  therefore,  is  not  35 


144  Er  shine, 

confined  to  whether  the  defendant  published  those  se- 
lected parts  of  it,  and  whetlier,  looking  at  them  as  tliey 
are  distorted  by  the  information,  they  carry  in  fair  con- 
struction the  sense  and  meaning  which  the  innuendoes 
5  put  ujwn  them ;  but  whether  the  author  of  the  entire 
work  —  I  say  the  author,  since,  if  he  could  defend  him- 
self, the  publisher  unquestionably  can — whether  the 
author  wrote  the  volume  which  I  hold  in  my  hand  as  a 
free,  manly,  bond  fide  disquisition  of  criminal  charges 

10  against  his  fellow-citizen ;  or  whether  the  long,  eloquent 
discussion  of  them,  which  fills  so  many  pages,  was  a  mere 
cloak  and  cover  for  the  introduction  of  the  supposed 
scandal  imputed  to  the  selected  passage?,  the  mind  of 
the  writer  all  along  being  intent  on  tnulucing  the  House 

15  of  Commons,  and  not  on  fairly  answering  their  charges 
against  Mr.  Hastings. 

This,  gentlemen,  is  the  princi})al  matter  for  your  con- 
sideration ;  and  therefore,  if,  after  you  shall  have  taken 
the  book  itself  into  the  chamber  which  will  be  provided 

20  for  you,  and  shall  have  read  the  whole  of  it  with  impar- 
tial attention  —  if,  after  the  perf o;:mance  of  this  duty,  you 
can  return  here,  and  with  clear  consciences  pronounce 
upon  your  oaths  that  the  impression  made  upon  you  by 
these  pages  is,  that  the  author  wrote  them  with   the 

25  wicked,  seditious,  and  corrupt  intentions  charged  by  the 
information  —  you  have  then  my  full  permission  to  find 
the  defendant  guilty ;  but  if,  on  the  other  hand,  the  gen- 
eral tenor  of  the  composition  shall  impress  you  with 
respect  for  the  author,  and  point  him  out  to  you  as  a  man 

30  niistiiken,  i>erhaps,  himself,  but  not  seeking  to  deceive 
others  —  if  every  line  of  the  work  shall  present  to  you 
an  intelligent,  animated  mind,  glowing  with  a  Christian 
compassion  towards  a  fellowman  whom  he  believed  to  be 
innocent,  and  with  a  patriot  zeal  for  the  liberty  of  his 

35  country-,  which  he  considered  as  wounded  through  the 


In  the  Stockdale  Case,  146 

sides  of  an  oppressed  fellow-citizen ;  —  if  this  shall  be 
the  impression  on  your  consciences  and  understandings, 
when  you  are  called  upon  to  deliver  your  verdict ;  then 
hear  from  me  that  you  not  only  work  private  injustice, 
but  break  up  the  press  of  England,  and  surrender  her  5 
rights  and  liberties  forever,  if  you  convict  the  defendant. 

Gentlemen,  to  enable  you  to  form  a  true  judgment  of 
the  meaning  of  this  book  and  of  the  intention  of  its 
author,  and  to  exjMJse  the  miserable  juggle  that  is  played 
off  in  the  information  by  the  combination  of  sentences  10 
which,  in  the  work  itself,  have  no  bearing  upon  one 
another,  I  will  first  give  you  the  publication  as  it  is 
charged  upon  the  record  and  presented  by  the  Attorney- 
General  in  opening  the  case  for  the  Crown ;  and  I  will 
then,  by  reading  the  interjacent  matter,  which  is  studi-  is 
ously  kept  out  of  view,  convince  you  of  its  true  inter- 
pretation. 

The  information,  beginning  with  the  first  page  of  the 
book,  charges  as  a  libel  upon  the  House  of  Commons  the 
following  sentence  :  "  The  House  of  Commons  has  now  20 
given  its  final  decision  with  regard  to  the  merits  and 
demerits  of  Mr.  Hastings.  The  grand  inquest  of  England 
have  delivered  their  charges,  and  preferred  their  impeach- 
ment ;  their  allegations  are  referred  to  proof ;  and  from 
the  appeal  to  the  collective  wisdom  and  justice  of  the  25 
nation,  in  the  supreme  tribunal  of  the  kingdom,  the  ques- 
tion comes  to  be  determined  whether  Mr.  Hastings  be 
guilty  or  not  guilty  ?  " 

It  is  but  fair,  however,  to  admit  that  this  first  sentence, 
which  the  most  ingenious  malice  cannot  torture  into  a  30 
criminal  construction,  is  charged  by  the  information 
rather  a.s  introductory  to  what  is  made  to  follow  it  than 
as  libellous  in  itself;  for  the  Attorney-General,  from  this 
introductory  passage  in  the  first  page,  goes  on  at  a  leap 
to  page  thirteenth,  and  reads,  almost  without  a  stop,  as  35 


146  Erakine, 

if  it  immediately  followed   the  other,  this    sentence : 
"  What  credit  can  we  give  to  multiplied  and  accumulated 

-  charges  when  we  find  that  they  originate  from  misrep- 
resentation and  falsehood  ?  " 
6  From  these  two  passages  thus  standing  together,  with- 
out the  intervenient  matter  which  occupies  thirteen  pages, 
one  would  imagine  that,  instead  of  investigating  the 
probability  or  improbability  of  the  guilt  imputed  to  Mr. 
Hastings  ;  instead  of  carefully  examining  the  Charges  of 

10  the  Commons,  and  the  defence  of  them  wliich  had  been 
delivered  before  them,  or  which  was  preparing  for  the 
Lords;  the  author  had  immediately,  and  in  a  moment 
after  stating  the  mere  fact  of  the  impeachment,  decided 
that  tlie  act  of  the  Commons  originated  from  misrep- 

16  resentation  and  falsehood. 

Gentlemen,  in  the  same  manner  a  veil  is  cast  over  all 
that  is  written  in  the  next  seven  pages ;  for,  knowing 
that  the  context  would  help  to  the  true  construction,  not 
only  of  the  passages  charged  before,  but  of  those  in  the 

20  sequel  of  this  information,  the  Attorney-General,  aware 
that  it  would  convince  every  man  who  read  it  that  there 
was  no  intention  in  the  author  to  calumniate  the  House 
of  Commons,  passes  over,  by  another  leap,  to  page  twenty ; 
and  in  the  same  manner,  without  drawing  his  breath, 

26  and  as  if  it  directly  followed  the  two  former  sentences 
in  the  first  and  thirteenth  pages,  reads  from  page  twen- 
tietli,  — "  An  impeachment  of  error  in  judgment  with 
regard  to  the  quantum  of  a  fine,  and  for  an  intention  that 
never  was  executed,  and  never  known  to  the  offending 

30  party,  characterizes  a  tribunal  of  inquisition  rather  than 
a  Court  of  Parliament." 

From  this  passage,  by  another  vault,  he  leaps  over 
one-and-thirty  pages  more,  to  page  fifty-one,  where  he 
reads  the  following  sentence,  which  he  mainly  relies  on, 

35  and  upon  which  I  shall  by  and  by  trouble  you  with  some 


In  the  Stockdale  Case.  147 

observations  :  "  Thirteen  of  them  passed  in  the  House  of 
Commons,  not  only  without  investigation,  but  without 
being  read;  and  the  votes  were  given  without  inquiry, 
argument,  or  conviction.  A  majority  had  determined  to 
impeach  ;  opix)site  parties  met  each  other,  and  *  jostled  6 
in  the  dark,*  to  perplex  the  political  drama,  and  bring 
the  liero  to  a  tragic  catastrophe." 

From  thence,  deriving  new  vigor  from  every  exertion, 
he  makes  his  last   gi-and  stride   over  forty-four  i)agea 
more,  almost  to  the  end  of  the  book,  charging  a  sentence  lo 
in  the  ninety-fifth  page. 

So  that,  out  of  a  volume  of  one  hundred  and  ten  pages, 
the  defendant  is  only  charged  with  a  few  scattered  frag- 
ments of  sentences,  picked  out  of  three  or  four.  Out  of 
a  work  consisting  of  about  two  thousand  five  hundred  15 
and  thirty  lines  of  manly,  spirited  eloquence,  only  forty 
or  fifty  lines  are  culled  from  different  parts  of  it,  and 
artfully  put  together,  so  as  to  rear  up  a  libel  out  of  a 
false  context,  by  a  supposed  connection  of  sentences  with 
one  another  which  are  not  only  entirely  independent,  20 
but  which,  when  compared  with  their  antecedents,  bear  a 
totally  different  construction.  In  this  manner  the  great- 
est works  upon  government,  the  most  excellent  l)ooks 
of  science,  the  sacred  Scriptures  themselves,  miglit  be 
distorted  into  libel ;  by  forsaking  the  general  context,  25 
and  hanging  a  meaning  uI)on  selected  parts.  Thus,  as 
in  the  text  put  by  Algernon  Sidney,  "  The  fool  hath  said 
in  his  heart,  There  is  no  God,"  the  Attorney-General, 
on  the  principle  of  the  present  i)roceeding  against  this 
jKimphlet,  might  indict  the  publisher  of  the  Bible  for  30 
blasi)hemously  denying  the  existence  of  Heaven  in  print- 
ing, "  There  is  no  God ;  "  —  these  words  alone,  without 
the  context,  would  be  selected  by  the  information,  and 
the  Bible,  like  this  book,  would  be  underscored  to  meet 
it ;  nor  could  the  defendant,  in  such  a  case,  have  any  ss 


148  Erskine, 

possible  defence,  unless  the  jury  were  permitted  to  see, 
by  the  book  itself,  that  the  verse,  instead  of  denying  the 
existence  of  the  Divinity,  only  imputed  that  imagination 
to  a  fool. 

6  Gentlemen,  having  now  gone  through  the  Attorney- 
GeneraPs  reading,  the  book  shall  presently  come  forward 
and  speak  for  itself ;  but  before  I  can  venture  to  lay  it 
before  you,  it  is  proper  to  call  your  attention  to  how 
matters  stood  at  the   time  of   its  publication,  without 

10  which  the  author's  meaning  and  intention  cannot  i)OS- 
sibly  be  understood. 

The  Commons  of  Great  Britain,  in  i'arliament  assem- 
bled, had  accused  Mr.  Hastings,  as  Governor-General  of 
Bengal,  of  high  crimes  and  misdemeanors;  and  their 

15  jurisdiction,  for  that  high  purpose  of  national  justice, 
was  unquestionably  competent;  but  it  is  proper  you 
should  know  tlie  nature  of  this  inquisitorial  capacity. 
The  Commons,  in  voting  an  impeachment,  may  be  com- 
pared to  a  grand  jury  finding  a  bill  of  indictment  for  the 

20  Crown  :  neither  the  one  nor  the  other  can  be  supposed  to 
proceed  but  upon  the  matter  which  is  brought  before 
them ;  neither  of  them  can  find  guilt  without  accusation, 
nor  the  truth  of  accusation,  without  evidence.  When, 
therefore,  we  speak  of  the  accuser  or  accusers  of  a  person 

25  indicted  for  any  crime,  although  the  grand  jury  are  the 
prosecutors  in  form,  by  giving  effect  to  tlie  accusation, 
yet,  in  common  parlance,  we  do  not  consider  them  as  the 
responsible  authors  of  the  prosecution.  If  I  were  to 
write  of   a  most  wicked  indictment,  found  against  an 

30  innocent  man,  which  was  preparing  for  trial,  nobody  who 
read  it  would  conceive  I  meant  to  stigmatize  the  grand 
jury  that  found  the  bill ;  but  it  would  be  inquired  imme- 
diately, who  was  the  prosecutor  and  who  were  the  witness- 
es on  the  back  of  it  ?     In  the  same  manner  I  mean  to 

35  contend  that  if  this  book  is  read  with  only  common  atten- 


In  the  Stockdcde  Case,  149 

tion,  tlie  wliole  scoj^  of  it  will  be  discovered  to  be  this : 
that,  in  the  opinion  of  tlie  author,  Mr.  Hastings  had  been 
accused  of  mal-administration  in  India  from  the  heat  and 
spleen  of  political  divisions  in  Parliament,  and  not  from 
any  zeal  for  national  honor  or  justice  ;  that  the  impeach-  6 
ment  did  not  originate  from  Government,  but  from  a  fac- 
tion banded  against  it,  which,  by  misrepresentation  and 
violence,  had  fastened  it  on  an  unwilling  House  of  Com- 
mons ;  that,  prepossessed  with  this  sentiment  —  which, 
however  unfoiuided,  makes  no  part  of  the  present  busi-  lo 
ness,  since  the  publisher  is  not  called  before  you  for  de- 
faming individual  members  of  the  Commons,  but  for  a  con- 
tempt of  the  Commons  as  a  body  —  the  author  pursues  the 
charges,  arti(ile  by  article ;  enters  into  a  warm  and  ani- 
mated vindication  of  Mr.  Hastings,  by  regular  answers  to  16 
each  of  them  ;  and  that,  as  far  as  the  mind  and  soul  of  a 
man  can  be  visible  —  I  might  almost  say  embodied  —  in 
his  writings,  his  intention  throughout  the  whole  volume 
apj^ars  to  have  been  to  charge  with  injustice  the  private 
accusers  of  Mr.  Hastings,  and  not  the  House  of  Commons  20 
as  a  body,  which  undoubtedly  rather  reluctantly  gave 
way  to,  than  heartily  adopted,  the  impeachment.  This 
will  be  found  to  be  the  jwlpable  scope  of  the  book ;  and 
no  man  who  can  read  English,  and  who,  at  the  same 
time,  will  have  the  candor  and  common  sense  to  take  up  26 
his  impressions  from  what  is  written  in  it,  instead  of 
bringing  his  own  along  with  him  to  the  reading  of  it,  can 
jiossibly  understand  it  otherwise. 

But  it  may  be  said,  admitting  this  to  be  the  scope 
and  design  of  the  autlior,  wliat  right  hatl  he  to  canvass  30 
the  merits  of  an  accusation  uiK)n  the  records  of  the  Com- 
mons, more  esi>ecially  while  it  was  in  the  course  of  legal 
procedure  ?  Tliis,  I  confess,  might  have  been  a  serious 
question  ;  but  the  Commons,  as  prosecutora  of  this  infor- 
mation, seem  to  have  waived  or  forfeited  their  right  to  96 


150  Enklne. 

ask  it.  Before  they  sent  the  Attorney-Greneral  into  this 
place  to  punish  the  publication  of  answers  to  their 
charges,  they  should  have  recollected  that  their  own 
want  of  circuinsi)ection  in  the  maintenance  of  their  priv- 
fi  ileges,  and  in  the  protection  of  persons  accused  before 
them,  had  given  to  the  public  the  charges  themselves, 
which  should  have  been  confined  to  their  own  Journals. 
The  course  and  practice  of  Parliament  might  warrant  the 
printing  of  them  for  the  use  of  their  own  members  ;  but 

10  there  the  publication  should  have  stopped,  and  all  fur- 
ther progress  been  resisted  by  authority.  If  they  were 
resolved  to  consider  answers  to  their  charges  as  a  con- 
tempt of  their  privileges,  and  to  punish  the  publication 
of  them  by  such  severe  prosecutions,  it  would  have  well 

15  become  them  to  have  begun  first  with  those  printers  who, 
by  publishing  the  charges  themselves  throughout  the 
whole  kingdom,  or  rather  throughout  the  whole  civilized 
world,  were  anticipating  the  passions  and  judgments  of 
the  public  against  a  subject  of  England  upon  his  trial, 

20  so  as  to  make  the  publication  of  answers  to  them  not 
merely  a  privilege,  but  a  debt  and  duty  to  humanity 
and  justice.  The  Commons  of  Great  Britain  claimed 
and  exercised  the  privilege  of  questioning  the  innocence 
of  Mr.  Hiistings   by  their   impeachment ;   but  as,  how- 

25  ever  questioned,  it  was  still  to  be  presumed  and  pro- 
tected until  guilt  was  established  by  a  judgment,  he 
whom  they  had  accused  had  an  equal  claim  upon  their 
justice  to  guard  him  from  prejudice  and  misrepresenta- 
tion until  the  hour  of  trial. 

30  Had  the  Commons,  therefore,  by  the  exercise  of  their 
high,  necessary,  and  legal  privileges,  kept  the  public 
aloof  from  all  canvass  of  their  proceedings  by  an  early 
punishment  of  printers  who,  without  reserve  or  secrecy, 
had  sent  out  the  charges  into  the  world  from  a  thousand 

35  presses  in  eveiy  form  of  publication,  they  would  have 


In  the  Stockdale   Case.  161 

then  stood  upon  ground  to-tlay  from  whence  no  argu- 
ment of  iK)licy  or  justice  could  have  removed  them  ; 
because  nothing  could  be  more  incompatible  with  either 
than  appeals  to  the  many  upon  subjects  of  judicature 
which,  by  common  consent,  a  few  are  appointed  to  deter-  6 
mine,  and  which  must  be  determined  by  facts  and  prin- 
ciples which  the  multitude  have  neither  leisure  nor 
knowledge  to  investigate.  But  then,  let  it  be  remem- 
bered that  it  is  for  those  who  have  the  authority  to 
accuse  and  punish,  to  set  the  example  of  and  to  enforce  10 
this  reserve  which  is  so  necessary  for  the  ends  of  justice. 
Courts  of  law  therefore,  in  England,  never  endure  the 
publication  of  their  records ;  and  a  prosecutor  of  an  in- 
dictment would  be  attached  for  such  a  publication ;  and 
uiK)n  the  same  principle,  a  defendant  would  be  punished  15 
for  anticipating  the  justice  of  his  country  by  the  publi- 
cation of  his  defence,  the  public  being  no  party  to  it 
until  the  tribunal  apiwinted  for  its  determination  be 
ojxjn  for  its  decision. 

Gentlemen,  you  have  a  right  to  take  judicial  notice  20 
of  these  matters  without  the  proof  of  them  by  wit- 
nesses, for  jurors  may  not  only,  without  evidence,  found 
their  verdicts  on  facts  that  are  notorious,  but  \\\}oi\  what 
they  know  privately  themselves,  after  revealing  it  upon 
oath  to  one  another,  and  therefore  you  are  always  to  25 
remember  that  this  book  was  written  when  the  charges 
against  Mr.  Hastings,  to  which  it  is  an  answer,  were,  to 
the  knowledge  of  the  Commons  (for  we  cannot  presume 
our  watchmen  to  have  been  asleep),  publicly  hawked 
about  in  every  pamphlet,  magazine,  .and  newspaper  in  so 
the  kingdom.  You  well  know  with  what  a  curious  ai)]»e- 
tite  those  charges  were  devoured  by  the  whole  public, 
interesting  as  they  were,  not  only  from  their  impoi'tance, 
but  from  the  merit  of  their  comjwsition ;  certainly  not 
80  intended  by  the  honorable  and  excellent  composer  35 


162  Enkine, 

to  oppress  the  accused,  but  because  the  commonest 
subjects  swell  into  eloquence  under  the  touch  of  his  sub- 
lime genius.  Thus,  by  the  remissness  of  the  Connnons, 
who  are  now  the  prosecutors  of  this  infonuatinn.  a  sul)- 

5  ject  of  Enicland,  who  was  not  even  charged  with  contu- 
macious n  sistanee  to  authority,  much  less  a  piuchiinied 
outlaw,  a: id  tlierefore  fully  entitled  to  every  security 
which  tlie  customs  and  statutes  of  the  kiiiL^dom  hold  out 
for  tiie  protection  of  British  liberty,  saw  himselt'  i)ierced 

10  with  the  arrows  of  thousands  and  tm  theusands  of 
libels. 

Gentlemen,  ere  I  venture  to  lay  the  ho.  ^k  heiure  you, 
it  niii>t.  be  yet  lurthcr  rciiieiidxTcd  (  loi-  the  fact  is 
equally  notorious)  that  under  these  inauspicious  cireum- 

16  stances  the  trial  of  Mr.  Hastings  at  the  l)ar  of  the 
Lords  had  actually  commenced  long  before  its  publica- 
tion. 

There  the  most  august  and  striking  spectacle  was  daily 
exhibited  whi(  h  the  world  ever  witnessed.     A  vast  stage 

20  of  justice  was  erected,  awful  from  its  liiich  authority, 
splendid  from  its  illustrious  dignity,  veneralilc  iiom  the 
learning  and  wisdom  of  its  judges,  (a]itivating  and 
affecting  from  the  mighty  concourse  of  all  ranks  and 
conditions  which  daily  flocked  into  it,  as  into  a  tin  atre 

25  of  pleasure;  there,  when  the  whole  public  mind  was  at 
once  awed  and  softened  to  the  iin])ression  of  every  hu- 
man affection,  there  appeared,  (Liy  after  day,  one  after 
another,  men  of  the  most  powerful  and  exalted  talents, 
colipsing  by  their  accusing  eloquence  the  most  boasted 

30  harangues  of  antiquity  —  rousing  the  pride  of  national 
resentment  by  the  boldest  invectives  against  broken 
faith  and  violated  treaties,  and  shaking  the  bosom  with 
alternate  pity  and  horror  by  the  most  glowing  pictures 
of   insulted   nature   and  humanity;  ever  animated  and 

35  energetic  from  the  love  of  fame,  which  is  the  inherent 


In  the  Stockdale  Case.  153 

passion  of  genius ;  firm  and  indefatigable  from  a  strong 
prepossession  of  the  justice  of  their  cause. 

Gentlemen,  when  the  author  sat  down  to  write  the 
book   now  before  you,  all  this  terrible,  unceasing,  ex- 
haustless    artillery   of   warm    zeal,   matchless   vigor  of  5 
understanding,    consuming    and    devouring    eloquence, 
united  with  the  highest  dignity,  was  daily,  and  with- 
out prospect  of  conclusion,  pouring  forth  upon  one  pri- 
vate, unprotected  man,  who  wiis  bound  to  hear  it,  in  the 
face  of  the  whole  people  of  England,  with  reverential  sub- 10 
mission  and  silence.     I  do  not  complain  of  this,  as  I  did 
of  the  publication  of  the  charges,  because  it  was  what 
the  law  allowed  and  sanctioned  in  the  course  of  a  public 
trial ;  but  when  it  is  remembered  that  we  are  not  angels, 
but  weak  fallible  men,  and  that  even  the  noble  judges  of  15 
that  high  tribunal  are  clothed  beneath  their  ermines  with 
the  common  infirmities  of  man's  nature,  it  will  bring  us 
all  to  a  proper  temper  for  considering  the  book  itself, 
which  will  in  a  few  moments  be  laid  before  you.     But 
first,  let  me  once  more  remind  you  that  it  was  under  20 
all  these  circumstances,  and  amidst  the  blaze  of  passion 
and  prejudice  which  the  scene  I  have  been  endeavoring 
faintly  to  describe  to  you  might  be  supposed  likely  to 
produce,  that  the  author,  whose  name  I  will  now  give  to 
you,  sat  down  to  compose  the  book  which  is  prosecuted  25 
to-day  as  a  libel. 

Tlie  history  of  it  is  very  short  and  natural. 

The  Rev.  Mr.  Logan,  minister  of  the  gospel  at  Leith, 
in  Scotland,  a  clergyman  of  the  purest  morals,  and,  as 
you  will  see  by  and  by,  of  very  superior  talents,  well  30 
acquainted  with  the  human  character,  and  knowing  the 
difficulty  of  bringing  back  public  opinion  after  it  is 
settled  on  any  subject,  took  a  warm,  unbought,  unso- 
licited interest  in  the  situation  of  Mr.  Hastings,  and 
deterinin«Ml,  if  ]M)8sible,  to  arrest  and  susi)end  the  ]>ublic  35 


154  Erskine, 

judgment  concerning  him.  He  felt  for  the  situation  of 
a  fellow-citizen  exposed  to  a  trial  which,  whether  right 
or  wrong,  is  undoubtedly  a  severe  one ;  a  trial  certainly 
not  confined  to  a  few  criminal  acts  like  those  we  are 
6  accustomed  to,  but  comprehending  the  transactions  of  a 
whole  life,  and  the  complicated  policies  of  numerous  and 
distant  nations ;  a  trial  which  had  neither  visible  limits 
to  its  duration,  bounds  to  its  expense,  nor  circumscribed 
compass  for  the  grasp  of  memory  or  understanding;  a 

10  trial  which  had  therefore  broken  loose  from  the  common 
forms  of  decision,  and  had  become  the  universal  topic  of 
discussion  in  the  world,  superseding  not  only  every  other 
grave  pursuit,  but  every  fashionable  dissipation. 

Gentlemen,  the   question  you  have  therefore  to   try 

15  upon  all  this  matter  is  extremely  simple.  It  is  neither 
more  nor  less  than  this.  At  a  time  when  the  charges 
against  Mr.  Hastings  were,  by  the  implied  consent  of  the 
Commons,  in  every  hand  and  on  every  table ;  when,  by 
their  managers,  the  lightning  of  eloquence  was   inces- 

20  santly  consuming  him,  and  flashing  in  the  eyes  of  the  pub- 
lic ;  when  every  man  was,  with  perfect  impunity,  saying, 
and  writing,  and  publishing  just  what  he  pleased  of  the 
supposed  plunderer  and  devastator  of  nations ;  —  would 
it  have  been  criminal  in  Mr.  Hastings  himself  to  have  re- 

25  minded  the  public  that  he  was  a  native  of  this  free  land, 
entitled  to  tlie  common  protection  of  her  justice,  and 
that  he  had  a  defence,  in  his  turn,  to  offer  to  them,  tlie 
outlines  of  which  he  implored  them  in  the  mean  time  to 
receive,  as  an  antidote  to  the  unlimited  and  unpunished 

30  poison  in  circulation  against  him  ?  This  is,  without 
color  or  exaggeration,  the  true  question  you  are  to  de- 
cide ;  because  I  assert,  without  the  hazard  of  contradic- 
tion, that  if  Mr.  Hastings  himself  could  have  stood 
justified  or  excused   in  your  eyes  for   publishing  this 

35  volume  in  his  own  defence,  the  author,  if  he  wrote  it 


In  the  Stockdale  Case,  155 

bond  fide  to  defend  him,  must  stand  equally  excused  and 
justified;  and  if  the  author  be  justified,  the  publisher 
cannot  be  criminal,  unless  you  have  evidence  that  it  was 
jmblished  by  him  with  a  different  spirit  and  intention 
from  those  in  which  it  was  written.  The  question,  there-  6 
fore,  is  correctly  what  I  just  now  stated  it  to  be  :  Could 
Mr.  Hastings  have  been  condemned  to  infamy  for  writ- 
ing this  book  ? 

Gentlemen,  I  tremble  with  indignation  to  be  driven  to 
put  such  a  question  in  England.      Shall  it  be  endured  10 
that  a  subject  of  this  country  (instead  of  being  arraigned 
and  tried  for  some  single  act  in  her  ordinary  courts,  where 
the  accusation,  as  soon  at  least  as  it  is  made  public,  is 
followed  within  a  few  hours  by  the  decision)  may  be  im- 
peached by  the  Commons  for  the  transactions  of  twenty  is 
years,  that  the  accusation  shall  spread  as  wide  as  the 
region  of  letters,  that  the  accused  shall  stand,  day  after 
day,  and  year  after  year,  as  a  spectacle  before  the  pub- 
lic, which  shall  be  kept  in  a  perpetual  state  of  inflam- 
mation against  him ;  yet  that  he  shall  not,  without  the  20 
severest  penalties,  be  permitted  to  submit  anything  to 
the  judgment  of  mankind  in  his  defence?     If  this  be 
law  (which  it  is  for  you  to-day  to  decide),  such  a  man 
lias  no  trial.     This  great  hall,  built  by  our  fathers  for 
English  justice,  is  no  longer  a  court,  but  an  altar ;  and  25 
an  Englishman,  instead  of  being  judged  in  it  by  God 
ind  his  country,  is  a  victim  and  a  sacrifice. 

You  will  carefully  remember  that  I  am  not  presuming 
to  question  either  the  right  or  duty  of  the  Commons  of 
Great  Britain  to  impeach ;  neither  am  I  arraigning  the  30 
])ropriety  of  their  selecting,  as  they  have  done,  the  most 
xtraordinary  persons  for  ability  which  the  age  has  pro- 
duced to  manage  their  impeachment.  Much  less  am  I 
censuring  the  managers  themselves,  charged  with  the 
conduct  of  it  before  the  Lords,  who  are  undoubtedly  35 


166  Erskine. 

bound,  by  their  duty  to  the  House  and  to  the  public,  to 
expatiate  upon  the  crimes  of  the  persons  whom  they  had 
accused.  None  of  these  points  are  questioned  by  me,  nor 
are  in  this  place  questionable.      1  desire  only  to  have  it 

6  decided  whether  —  if  the  Commons,  when  national  expedi- 
ency hap{)ens  to  call,  in  their  judgment,  for  an  impeach- 
ment, shall,  instead  of  keeping  it  on  their  own  records, 
and  carrying  it  with  due  solemnity  to  the  Peers  for 
trial,  permit  it,  without  censure  and  punishment,  to  be 

10  sold  like  a  common  newspaper  in  the  shop  of  my  client, 
so  crowded  with  their  own  members,  that  no  plain  man, 
without  privilege  of  Parliament,  can  hope  even  for  the 
sight  of  the  fire  in  a  winter's  day,  every  man  buying  it, 
reading  it,  and  commenting  upon  it  —  tlie  gentleman  him- 

16  self  who  is  the  object  of  it,  or  his  friend  in  his  absence, 
may  not,  without  stepping  beyond  the  bounds  of  English 
freedom,  put  a  copy  of  what  is  thus  published  into  his 
pocket,  and  send  back  to  the  very  same  shop  for  publica- 
tion a  bond  fidcj  rational,  able  answer  to  it,  in  order  that 

20  the  bane  and  antidote  may  circulate  together,  and  the 
public  be  kept  straight  till  the  day  of  decision  ?  If  you 
think,  gentlemen,  that  this  common  duty  of  self-preserva- 
tion in  the  accused  himself,  which  nature  writes  as  a  law 
upon  the  hearts  of  even  savages  and  brutes,  is  neverthe- 

25  less  too  high  a  privilege  to  be  enjoyed  by  an  impeached 
and  suffering  Englishman ;  or  if  you  think  it  beyond  the 
offices  of  humanity  and  justice,  when  brought  home  to 
the  hand  of  a  brother  or  a  friend,  you  will  say  so  by 
your  verdict  of  guilty  ;  the  decision  will  then  be  yours, 

30  and  the  consolation  mine,  that  I  have  labored  to  avert  it. 
A  very  small  part  of  the  misery  which  will  follow  from 
it  is  likely  to  light  upon  me ;  the  rest  will  be  divided 
among  yourselves  and  your  children. 

Gentlemen,  I  observe  plainly,  and  with  infinite  satisfac- 

35  tion,  that  you  are  shocked  and  offended  at  my  even  sup- 


In  the  Stockdale  Case.  167 

posing  it  possible  you  should  pronounce  such  a  detestable 
judgment,  and  that  you  only  require  of  me  to  make  out 
to  your  satisfaction,  as  I  promised,  that  the  real  scope 
and  object  of  this  book  is  a  bond  jide  defence  of  Mr. 
Hastings,  and  not  a  cloak  and  cover  for  scandal  on  the  5 
House  of  Commons.  I  engage  to  do  this,  and  I  engage 
for  nothing  more.  I  shall  make  an  open,  manly  defence. 
I  mean  to  torture  no  expressions  from  their  natural  con- 
structions ;  to  dispute  no  innuendoes  on  the  record,  should 
any  of  them  have  a  fair  application ;  nor  to  conceal  from  10 
your  notice  any  unguarded,  intemperate  expressions 
which  may,  perhaps,  be  found  to  chequer  the  vigorous 
and  animated  career  of  the  work.  Such  a  conduct  might, 
by  accident,  shelter  the  defendant ;  but  it  would  be  the 
surrender  of  the  very  principle  on  which  alone  the  liberty  16 
of  the  English  press  can  stand,  and  I  shall  never  defend 
any  man  from  a  temporary  imprisonment  by  the  perma- 
nent loss  of  my  own  liberty,  and  the  ruin  of  my  country. 
I  mean,  therefore,  to  submit  to  you  that,  though  you 
should  find  a  few  lines  in  page  thirteen  or  twenty-one,  a  20 
few  more  in  page  fifty-one,  and  some  others  in  other 
places,  containing  expressions  bearing  on  the  House  of 
Commons,  even  as  a  body,  which  if  written  as  indepen- 
dent paragraphs  by  themselves,  would  be  indefensible 
libels,  yet  that  you  have  a  right  to  pass  them  over  in  25 
judgment,  provided  the  substance  clearly  appears  to  be  a 
bond  fide  conclusion,  arising  from  the  honest  investigation 
of  a  subject  which  it  was  lawful  to  investigate,  and  the 
questionable  expressions  the  visible  effusion  of  a  zeal- 
ous temper  engaged  in  an  honorable  and  legal  pursuit.  30 
After  this  preparation,  I  am  not  afraid  to  lay  the  book  in 
its  genuine  state  before  you. 

The  pamphlet  begins  thus  :  "  The  House  of  Commons 
has  now  given  its  final  decision  with  regard  to  the  merits 
and  demerits  of  Mr.  Hastings.     The  grand  inquest  of  35 


158  Er  shine, 

England  have  delivered  their  charges,  and  preferred 
their  impeachment;  their  allegations  are  referred  to 
proof ;  and,  from  the  appeal  to  the  collective  wisdom  and 
justice  of  the  nation  in  the  supreme  tribunal  of  the  king- 

5  dom,  the  question  comes  to  be  determined  whether  Mr. 
Hastings  be  guilty  or  not  guilty?" 

Now,  if  immediately  after  what  I  have  just  read  to 
you  (which  is  the  first  part  charged  by  the  information) 
the  author  had  said,  "  Will  accusations,  built  on  such  a 

10  baseless  fabric,  prepossess  the  public  in  favor  of  the  im- 
peachment ?  What  credit  can  we  give  to  multiplied  and 
accumulated  charges,  when  we  find  that  they  originate 
from  misrepresentation  and  falsehood  ? "  every  man 
would  have  been  justified  in  pronouncing  that  he  was  at- 

15  tacking  the  House  of  Commons,  because  the  groundless 
accusations  mentioned  in  the  second  sentence  could  have 
no  reference  but  to  the  House  itself  mentioned  by  name 
in  the  first  and  only  sentence  which  preceded  it. 

But,  Gentlemen,  to  your  astonishment,  I  will  now  read 

20  what  intervenes  between  these  two  passages.  From  this 
you  will  see,  beyond  a  possibility  of  doubt,  that  the 
author  never  meant  to  calumniate  the  House  of  Com- 
mons, but  to  say  that  the  accusations  of  Mr.  Hastings 
before  the  whole  House  grew  out  of  a  Committee  of  Se- 

25  crecy  established  some  years  before,  and  were  afterwards 
brought  forward  by  the  spleen  of  private  enemies  and  a 
faction  in  the  government.  This  will  appear,  not  only 
from  the  grammatical  construction  of  the  words,  but 
from  what  is  better  than  words,  from  the  meaning  which 

30  a  person  writing  as  a  friend  of  Mr.  Hastings  must  be  sup- 
posed to  have  intended  to  convey.  Why  should  such  a 
friend  attack  the  House  of  Commons  ?  Will  any  man 
gravely  tell  me  that  the  House  of  Commons,  as  a  body, 
ever  wished  to  impeach  Mr.  Hastings  ?     Do  we  not  all 

36  know  that  they  constantly  hung  back  from  it,  and  hardly 


In  the  Stockdale   Case,  169 

knew  where  they  were,  or  what  to  do,  when  they  found 
themselves  entangled  with  it  ?  My  learned  friend,  the 
Attorney-General,  is  a  member  of  this  Assembly ;  per- 
haps he  may  tell  you  by  and  by  what  he  thought  of  it, 
and  whether  he  ever  marked  any  disposition  in  the  mar  6 
jority  of  the  Commons  hostile  to  Mr.  Hastings.  But  why 
should  I  distress  my  friend  by  the  question  ?  The  fact 
is  sufficiently  notorious;  and  what  I  am  going  to  read 
from  the  book  itself  (which  is  left  out  in  the  informa- 
tion) is  too  plain  for  controversy.  lO 

"  Whatever  may  be  the  event  of  the  impeachment,  the 
proper  exercise  of  such  power  is  a  valuable  privilege  of 
the  British  Constitution,  a  formidable  guardian  of  the 
public  libei-ty  and  the  dignity  of  the  nation.  The  only 
danger  is,  that,  from  the  influence  of  faction,  and  the  15 
awe  which  is  annexed  to  great  names,  they  may  be 
prompted  to  determine  before  they  inquire,  and  to  pro- 
nounce judgment  without  examination." 

Here  is  the  clue  to  the  whole  pamphlet.  The  author 
trusts  to  and  respects  the  House  of  Commons,  but  is  20 
afraid  their  mature  and  just  consideration  may  be  dis- 
turbed by  faction.  Now,  does  he  mean  government  by 
faction  ?  Does  he  mean  the  majority  of  the  Commons  by 
faction  ?  Will  the  House,  which  is  the  prosecutor  here, 
sanction  that  application  of  the  phrase  —  or  will  the  25 
Attorney-General  admit  the  majority  to  be  the  true  in- 
nuendo of  faction  ?  I  wish  he  would ;  I  should  then 
have  gained  something  at  least  by  this  extraordinary  de- 
bate. But  I  have  no  expectation  of  the  sort ;  such  a  con- 
cession would  be  too  great  a  sacrifice  to  any  prosecution  30 
at  a  time  when  every  thing  is  considered  as  faction  that 
disturbs  the  repose  of  the  Minister  in  Parliament.  But, 
indeed,  Gentlemen,  some  things  are  too  plain  for  argu- 
ment. The  author  certainly  means  my  friends,  who, 
whatever  qualifications  may  belong  to  them,  must  be  35 


160  Erskine, 

contented  with  the  appellation  of  faction  while  they  op- 
pose the  Minister  in  the  House  of  Commons ;  but  the 
House  having  given  this  meaning  to  the  phrase  of  faction 
for  its  own  purposes,  cannot  in  decency  change  the  inter- 
5  pretation  in  order  to  convict  my  client.  I  take  that  to 
be  beyond  the  privilege  of  Parliament. 

The  same  bearing  upon  individual  members  of  the 
Commons,  and  not  on  the  Commons  as  a  body,  is  obvious 
tliroughout.     Thus,  after  saying,  in  page  nine,  that  the 

10  East  India  Company  had  thanked  Mr.  Hastings  for  his 
meritorious  services  (which  is  unquestionably  true),  he 
adds,  "that  mankind  would  abide  by  their  deliberate 
decision,  rather  than  by  the  intemperate  assertion  of  a 
committee." 

15  This  he  writes  after  the  Imi)eachment  was  found  by 
the  Commons  at  large,  but  he  takes  no  account  of  their 
proceedings,  imputing  the  whole  to  the  original  com- 
mittee ;  i.e.y  the  Committee  of  Secrecy,  so  called,  I  sup- 
pose, from  their  being  the  authors  of  twenty  volumes  in 

20  folio,  which  will  remain  a  secret  to  all  posterity,  as  no- 
body will  ever  read  them.  The  same  construction  is 
equally  plain  from  what  immediately  follows  :  "  The  re- 
port of  the  Committee  of  Secrecy  also  states  that  the 
happiness  of  the  native  inhabitants  of  India  has  been 

26  deeply  affected,  their  confidence  in  English  faith  and 
lenity  shaken  and  impaired,  and  the  character  of  this 
nation  wantonly  and  wickedly  degraded." 

Here,  again,  you  are  grossly  misled  by  the  omission  of 
near   twenty-one  pages;   for  the   author,  though   he   is 

30  here  speaking  of  this  committee  by  name,  which  brought 
forward  the  charges  to  the  notice  of  the  House,  and 
which  he  continues  to  do  onward  to  the  next  select  para- 
graph, yet,  by  arbitrarily  sinking  the  whole  context,  he 
is  taken  to  be  speaking  of  the  House  as  a  body,  when,  in 

35  the   passage   next   charged  by  the   information,  he   re- 


In  the  Stockdale  Case.  161 

proaches  the  accusers  of  Mr.  Hastings  ;  although,  so  far 
is  he  from  considering  them  as  the  House  of  Commons, 
that  in  the  very  same  page  he  speaks  of  the  Articles  as 
the  charges,  not  even  of  the  Committee,  but  of  Mr.  Burke 
alone,  the  most  active  and  intelligent  member  of  that  5 
Ixxly,  having  been  circulated  in  India  by  a  relation  of 
tliat  gentleman :  "  The  charges  of  Mr.  Burke  have  been 
carried  to  Calcutta,  and  carefully  circulated  in  India." 

Now,  if  we  were  considering  these  passages  of  the  work 
as  calumniating  a  body  of  gentlemen,  many  of  whom  lO 
I  must  be  supposed  highly  to  respect,  or  as  reflecting 
upon  my  worthy  friend  whose  name  I  have  mentioned,  it 
would  give  rise  to  a  totally  different  inquiry,  which  it  is 
neither  my  duty  nor  yours  to  agitate ;  but  surely,  the 
more  that  consideration  obtrudes  itself  upon  us,  the  more  15 
clearly  it  demonstrates  that  the  author's  whole  direction 
was  against  the  individual  accusers  of  Mr.  Hastings,  and 
not  against  the  House  of  Commons,  which  merely  trusted 
to  the  matter  they  had  collected. 

Althougli,  from  a  caution  which  my  situation  dictates  20 
as  representing  another,  I  have  thought  it  my  duty  thus 
to  point  out  to  you  the  real  intention  of  the  author,  as  it 
appears  by  the  fair  construction  of  the  work,  yet  I  pro- 
test that  in  my  own  apprehension  it  is  very  immaterial 
whether  he  speaks  of  the  Committee  or  of  the  House,  pro-  25 
vided  you  shall  think  the  whole  volume  a  boiid  fide  de- 
fence of  Mr.  Ha.stings.  This  is  the  great  point  I  am,  by 
all  my  observations,  endeavoring  to  establish,  and  which 
I  think  no  man  who  reads  the  following  short  passages 
can  doubt.  Very  intelligent  i)ersons  have  indeed  con-  30 
sidered  them,  if  founded  in  facts,  to  render  every  other 
amplification  unnecessary.  The  first  of  them  is  as  fol- 
lows :  "  It  was  known,  at  that  time,  that  Mr.  Hastings 
hail  not  only  descended  from  a  public  to  a  private  sta- 
tion, but  that  he  was  persecuted  with  accusations  and  35 


162  Urskine. 

impeachments.  But  none  of  these  suffering  millions 
have  sent  their  complaints  to  this  country  ;  not  a  sigh  nor 
a  groan  has  been  waited  from  India  to  Britain.  On  the 
contrary,  testimonies  the  most  honorable  to  the  character 

5  and  merit  of  Mr.  Hastings  have  been  transmitted  by 
those  very  princes  whom  he  has  been  supposed  to  have 
loaded  with  the  deepest  injuries." 

Here,  gentlemen,  we  must  be  permitted  to  pause  to- 
gether a  little ;  for,  in  examining  whether  these  pages 

10  were  written  as  an  honest  answer  to  the  charges  of  the 
Commons,  or  as  a  prostituted  defence  of  a  notorious 
criminal  whom  the  writer  believed  to  be  guilty,  truth 
becomes  material  at  every  step;  for  if  in  any  instance 
he  be  detected  of  a  wilful  misrepresentation,  he  is  no 

15  longer  an  object  of  your  attention. 

Will  the  Attomey-Greneral  proceed  then  to  detect  the 
hypocrisy  of  our  author,  by  giving  us  some  details  of 
the  proofs  by  which  these  personal  enormities  have  been 
established,  and  which  the  writer  must  be  supposed  to 

20  have  been  acquainted  with  ?  I  ask  this  as  the  defender 
of  Mr.  Stockdale,  not  of  Mr.  Hastings,  with  whom  I  have 
no  concern.  I  am  sorry,  indeed,  to  be  so  often  obliged 
to  repeat  this  protest;  but  I  really  feel  myself  embar- 
rassed with  those  repeated  coincidences  of  defence  which 

25  thicken  on  me  as  I  advance,  and  which  were,  no  doubt, 
overlooked  by  the  Commons  when  they  directed  this 
interlocutory  inquiry  into  his  conduct.  I  ask,  then,  as 
counsel  for  Mr.  Stockdale,  whether,  when  a  great  state 
criminal  is  brought  for  justice  at  an  immense  expense  to 

30  the  public,  accused  of  the  most  oppressive  cruelties,  and 
charged  with  the  robbery  of  princes  and  the  destruction 
of  nations,  it  is  not  open  to  any  one  to  ask,  "  ^Yh.o  are 
his  accusers  ?  What  are  the  sources  and  the  authorities 
of    these    shocking   complaints  ?     Where  are  the   am- 

35  bassadors  or  memorials  of  those  princes  whose  revenues 


In  the  Stockdale  Case,  163 

he  has  plundered  ?  Where  are  the  witnesses  for  those 
unhappy  men  in  whose  persons  the  rights  of  humanity 
have  been  violated  ?  How  deeply  buried  is  the  blood 
of  the  innocent,  that  it  does  not  rise  up  in  retributive 
judgment  to  confound  the  guilty  ? "  These,  surely,  are  6 
questions  which,  when  a  fellow-citizen  is  upon  a  long, 
painful,  and  expensive  trial,  humanity  has  a  right  to 
propose ;  which  the  plain  sense  of  the  most  unlettered 
man  may  be  expected  to  dictate ;  and  which  all  history 
must  provoke  from  the  more  enlightened.  When  Cicero  10 
impeached  Verres  before  the  great  tribunal  of  Rome  of 
-imilar  cruelties  and  depredations  in  her  Provinces,  the 
Roman  people  were  not  left  to  such  inquiries.  All 
Sicily  surrounded  the  Forum,  demanding  justice  upon 
her  plunderer  and  spoiler,  with  tears  and  imprecations.  15 
It  was  not  by  the  eloquence  of  the  orator,  but  by  the 
cries  and  tears  of  the  miserable,  that  Cicero  prevailed  in 
that  illustrious  cause.  Verres  fled  from  the  oaths  of  his 
accusers  and  their  witnesses,  and  not  from  the  voice  of 
Tully.  To  preserve  the  fame  of  his  eloquence,  he  com-  20 
posed  his  five  celebrated  speeches,  but  they  were  never 
delivered  against  the  criminal,  because  he  had  fled  from 
the  city,  appalled  with  the  sight  of  the  persecuted  and 
the  oppressed.  It  may  be  said  that  the  cases  of  Sicily 
and  India  are  widely  different ;  perhaps  they  may  be ;  25 
whether  they  are  or  not  is  foreign  to  my  purpose.  I  am 
not  bound  to  deny  the  possibility  of  answers  to  such 
questions  ;  I  am  only  vindicating  the  right  to  ask  them. 

Gentlemen,  the  author,  in"  the  other  passage  which  I 
marked  out  to  your  attention,  goes  on  thus  :  —  "  Lord  .10 
Cornwallis  and  Sir  John  Macpherson,  his  successors  in 
office,  have  given  the  same  voluntary  tribute  of  approba- 
tion to  his  measures  as  Governor-Greneral  of  India,  A 
letter  from  tlie  former,  dated  the  10th  of  August,  1786, 
gives  the  following  account  of  our  dominions  in  Asia :  35 


104  Erskine, 

*The  native  inliabitants  oi'  tliis  kiii,L,nl<>iii  arc  the  ]ia)i])iost 
and  b«'>t  protcclfd  subjects  ill  India;  our  native  allies 
and  tributaries  contide  in  our  protection ;  the  country 
powers  are  aspiring  to  the  friendship  of  the  English; 
sand  from  tlie  King  of  Tidore,  toward  New  Guinea,  to 
Tiniur  Sliah,  on  the  banks  of  the  Indus,  there  is  not  a 
state  tliat  has  not  lately  given  us  proofs  of  confidence 
and  respect.'" 

Still  pursuing  the  same  test  of  sincerity,  let  us  examine 

10  this  defensive  allegation. 

\\  ill  the  Attorney-Greneral  say  that  he  does  not  Ik  lit  ve 
such  a  letter  frotn  Lord  Comwallis  ever  existed  ?  ^'u !  for 
he  knows  thai  it  is  as  authentic  as  any  document  from 
India  upon  the  table  of  the  House  of  ComuM  n>.     W  hat, 

m  tlien,  is  the  letter?  "The  native  inhabitants  ot  this 
kini;(h)ni,"  says  Lord  Corn wallis  (writing  from  the  \ary 
spot),  "are  the  happiest  and  best  protected  subjects  in 
India,"  etc.,  etc.,  etc.  The  inhabitants  of  this  kinccdom  ! 
Of  what  kingdom?     Of  the  very  kingdom  \\hi(h  Mr. 

20  Hastings  has  just  returned  from  governing  for  thirtetn 
years,  and  for  the  misgovernment  and  desolation  of 
which  ht  stands  every  day  as  a  criminal,  or  rather  as  a 
spectacle,  before  us.  This  is  matter  for  serious  reflec- 
tion, and  fully  entitles  the  author  to  ])ut  tlie  (jucstion 

25  which  immediately  follows:  "Does  tliis  authentic  ac- 
count of  the  administration  of  ^Ir.  Hastings,  and  ot  the 
state  of  India,  correspond  with  the  gloomy  picture  of 
despotism  and  desjiair  drawn  by  the  Committee  of 
Secrecy  ?  " 

30  Had  that  picture  been  even  drawn  by  the  House  of 
Commons  itself,  he  would  have  been  fully  justified  in 
asking  this  question ;  but  you  observe  it  has  no  bearing 
on  it ;  the  last  words  not  only  entirely  destroy  that 
interpretation,  but  also  tlie  nieanincr  <>f   the   very  next 

35  passage  which  is  selected  by  the  information  as  criminal ; 


In  the  Stockdale  Case,  105 

najnely,  "  What  credit  can  we  give  to  multiplied  and  ac- 
cumulated charges,  when  we  find  that  they  originate 
iiom  misrepresentation  and  falsehood  ?  '* 

This  passage,  which  is  charged  as  a  libel  on  the  Com- 
mons, when  thus  compared  with  its  immediate  antece-  5 
dftnt,  can  bear  but  one  construction.  It  is  imjwssible  to 
)ntend  that  it  charges  misrepresentation  on  the  House 
that  found  the  impeachment,  but  ui)on  the  Committee  of 
Secrecy  just  before  adverted  to,  who  were  supi)osed  to 
liave  selected  the  matter,  and  brought  it  before  the  whole  10 
House  for  judgment. 

I  do  not  mean,  as  I  have  often  told  you,  to  vindicate 
any  calumny  on  that  honorable  Committee,  or  upon  any 
individual  of  it,  any  more  than  upon  the  Commons  at 
large,  but  the  defendant  is  not  charged  by  this  informa- 15 
mation  with  any  such  offences. 

Let  me  here  pause  once  more  to  ask  you  whether  the 
book  in  its  genuine  state,  as  far  as  we  have  advanced  in 
it,  makes  the  same  impression  on  your  minds  now  as 
wlien  it  was  first  read  to  you  in  detached  passages;  and  20 
whether,  if  I  were  to  tear  off  the  first  part  of  it,  which  I 
hold  in  my  hand,  and  give  it  to  you  as  an  entire  work,  the 
tirst  and  last  passages,  which  have  been  selected  as  libels 
on  the  Commons,  would  now  appear  to  be  so  when 
blended  witli  the  interjacent  parts  ?  I  do  not  ask  your  25 
answer — I  shall  have  it  in  your  verdict.  The  question 
is  only  put  to  direct  your  attention  in  pursuing  the 
remainder  of  the  volume  to  this  main  point, — is  it  an 
honest,  serious  defence  ?  For  this  purpose,  and  as  an 
example  for  all  others,  I  will  read  the  author's   entire  .30 

iswer  to  the  first  article  of  charge  concerning  Cheit 
>ing,  the  Zemindar  of  Benares,  and  leave  it  to  your 
impartial  judgments  to  determine  whether  it  be  a  mere 
cloak  and  cover  for  the  slander  imputed  by  the  infornia- 
tinii  to  the  concluding  sentence  of  it,  which  is  tli«'  nnly  35 


166  ErsMne, 

part  attacked ;  or  whether,  on  the  contrary,  that  con- 
clusion itself,  when  embodied  with  what  goes  before  it, 
does  not  stand  explained  and  justified  ? 

"The  first  article  of  impeachment,"  continues  our 
6  author,  "  is  concerning  Cheit  Sing,  the  Zemindar  of 
Benares.  Bui  want  Sing,  the  father  of  this  Rajah,  was 
merely  an  aumily  or  farmer  and  collector  of  the  revenues 
for  Sujah-ul-Dowlah,  Nabob  of  Oude,  and  Vizier  of  the 
Mogul  empire.     When,  on  the   decease  of  his   father, 

10  Cheit  Sing  was  confirmed  in  the  office  of  collector  for 
the  Vizier,  he  paid  two  hundred  thousand  pounds  as  a 
gift,  or  muzzeranah,  and  an  additional  rent  of  thirty 
thousand  pounds  per  annum." 

"  As  the  father  was  no  more  than  an  aumily  the  son 

16  succeeded  only  to  his  rights  and  pretensions.  But  by  a 
sunnud  granted  to  him  by  the  Nabob,  Sujah  Dowlah,  in 
September,  1773,  through  the  influence  of  Mr.  Hastings, 
he  acquired  a  legal  title  to  property  in  the  land,  and  was 
raised  from  the  office  of  aumil  to  rank  of  Zemindar. 

20  About  four  years  after  the  death  of  Bulwant  Sing,  the 
Governor-General  and  Council  of  Bengal  obtained  the 
sovereignty  paramount  of  the  province  of  Benares.  On 
the  transfer  of  this  sovereignty  the  Governor  and  Coun- 
cil proposed  a  new  grant  to  Cheit  Sing,  confirming  his 

25  former  privileges,  and  conferring  upon  him  the  addition 
of  the  sovereign  rights  of  the  mint,  and  the  powers  of 
criminal  justice  with  regard  to  life  and  death.  He  was 
then  recognized  by  the  Company  as  one  of  their  Zem- 
indars ;  a  tributary  subject,  or  feudatory  vassal,  of  the 

30  British  empire  in  Hindostan.  The  feudal  system,  which 
was  formerly  supposed  to  be  peculiar  to  our  Gothic  an- 
cestors, has  always  prevailed  in  the  East.  In  every 
description  of  that  form  of  government,  notwithstand- 
ing accidental  variations,  there  are  two  associations  ex- 

35  pressed   or   understood ;   one  for   internal   security,  the 


In  the  Stockdale  Case,  167 

other  for  external  defence.    The  King  or  Nabob  confers 
I  >rotection  on  the  feudatory  baron  as  tributary  prince,  on 

)ndition  of  an  annual  revenue  in  the  time  of  peace,  and 

i  military  service,  partly  commutable  for  money,  in  the 
t  ime  of  war.  The  feudal  incidents  in  the  Middle  Ages  in  5 
luirope,  the  fine  paid  to  the  superior  on  marriage,  ward- 
ship, relief,  etc.,  correspond  to  the  annual  tribute  in 
Asia.  Military  service  in  war,  and  extraordinary  aids 
i  II  the  event  of  extraordinary  emergencies,  were  common 
to  both."  10 

"  When  the  Governor-General  of  Bengal,  in  1778,  made 
an  extraordinary  demand  on  the  Zemindar  of  Benares 
for  five  lacs  of  rupees,  the  British  empire,  in  that  part  of 
*^he  world,  was  surrounded  with  enemies  which  threat- 

led  its  destruction.  In  1779,  a  general  confederacy  16 
was  formed  among  the  great  powers  of  Hindostan  for 
the  expulsion  of  the  English  from  their  Asiatic  domin- 
ions. At  this  crisis  the  expectation  of  a  French  arma- 
ment augmented  the  general  calamities  of  the  country. 
Mr.  Hastings  is  charged  by  the  committee  with  making  20 
Ills  first  demand  under  the  false  pretence  that  hostilities 
luid  commenced  with  France.  Such  an  insidious  attempt 
to  pervert  a  meritorious  action  into  a  crime  is  new  — 
even  in  the  history  of  impeachments.  On  the  7th  of 
July,  1778,  Mr.  Hastings  received  private  intelligence  25 
from  an  English  merchant  at  Cairo,  that  war  had  been 
declared  by  Great  Britain  on  the  23d  of  March,  and  by 
I'rance  on  the  30th  of  April.  Upon  this  intelligence, 
considered  as  authentic,  it  was  determined  to  attack  all 
the  French  settlements  in  India.  The  information  was  30 
afterward  found  to  be  premature ;  but  in  the  latter  end 
of  August  a  secret  despatch  was  received  from  England, 
authorizing  and  appointing  Mr.  Hastings  to  take  the 
measures  which  he  had  already  adopted  in  the  preceding 
month.    The  Directors  and  the  Board  of  Control  have  8ft 


168  Erskme. 

expressed  their  approbation  of  this  transaction  by  liber- 
ally rewarding  Mr.  Baldwyn,  the  merchant,  for  sending 
the  earliest  intelligence  he  could  procure  to  Bengal.  It 
was  two  days  after  Mr.  Hastings's  information  of  the 
5  French  war  that  he  formed  the  resolution  of  exacting 
the  five  lacs  of  rupees  from  Cheit  Sing,  and  would  have 
made  similar  exactions  from  all  the  dependencies  of  the 
Company  in  India  had  they  been  in  the  same  circum- 
stances.    The  fact  is  that  the  great  Zemindars  of  Bengal 

10  pay  as  much  to  government  as  their  lands  can  afford. 
Cheit  Sing's  collections  were  above  fifty  lacs,  and  his 
rent  not  twenty-four." 

"  The  right  of  calling  for  extraordinary  aids  and  mili- 
tary service  in  times  of  danger  being  universally  estab- 

15  lished  in  India,  as  it  was  formerly  in  Europe  during  the 
feudal  times,  the  subsequent  conduct  of  Mr.  Hastings  is 
explained  and  vindicated.  The  Governor-General  and 
Council  of  Bengal  having  made  a  demand  upon  a  tribu- 
tary Zemindar   for    three    successive    years,  and    that 

20  demand  having  been  resisted  by  their  vassal,  they  are 
justified  in  his  punishment.  The  necessities  of  the  Com- 
pany, in  consequence  of  the  critical  situation  of  their 
affairs  in  1781,  calling  for  a  high  fine ;  the  ability  of  the. 
Zemindar,  who  possessed  near  two  crores  of   rupees  in 

25  money  and  jewels,  to  pay  the  sum  required ;  his  back- 
wardness to  comply  with  the  demands  of  his  superiors ; 
his  disaffection  to  the  English  interest,  and  desire  of 
revolt,  which  even,  then  began  to  appear,  and  were  after- 
wards conspicuous  —  fully  justify  Mr.  Hastings  in  every 

30  subsequent  step  of  his  conduct.  In  the  whole  of  his  pro- 
ceedings it  is  manifest  that  he  had  not  early  formed  a 
design  hostile  to  the  Zemindar,  but  was  regulated  by 
events  which  he  could  neither  foresee  nor  control. 
When  the  necessary  measures  which  he  had  taken  for 

35  supporting  the  authority  of  the  Company  by  punishing 


///  ///'    Stockdale  Case,  169 

a  refractory  va.ssal  were  thwarted  and  defeated  by  the 
barbarous  massacre  of  the  British  troops  and  by  the 
rebellion  of  Cheit  Sing,  the  appeal  was  made  to  arms ;  an 
unavoidable  revolution  took  place  in  Benares,  and  the 
/cniiridar  became  the  author  of  his  own  destruction."        5 

Here  follows  the  concluding  passage,  which  is  arraigned 
1 » y  the  information :  — 

"  The   decision  of   the   House  of  Commons   on  this 
charge  against  Mr.  Hastings  y^  one  of  the  most  singu- 
lar to  be  met  with  in  the  annals  of  Parliament.     The  10 
Minister,  who  was  followed  by  the  majority,  vindicated 
liini  in  every  thing  that  he  had  done,  and  found  him 
lilamable   only  for  what   he   intended   to   do;    justified 
every  step  of  his  conduct,  and  only  criminated  his  pro- 
l>osed  intention  of  converting  the  crimes  of  the  Zemin- 15 
(lar  to  the  benefit  of  the  state  by  a  fine  of  fifty  lacs  of 
rui)ees.     An   impeachment  of  error  in  judgment  with 
K'l^ard  to  the  quantum  of  a  fine,  and  for  an  intention 
tliat  never  was  executed,  and  never  known  to  the  offend- 
ing party,  characterizes  a  tribunal  of  inquisition  rather  20 
than  a  court  of  Parliament." 

Gentlemen,  I  am  ready  to  admit  that  this  sentiment 
might  have  been  expressed  in  language  more  reserved 
i  1  id  guarded ;  but  you  will  look  to  the  sentiment  itself, 
ither  than  to  its  dress;  to  the  mind  of  the  writer,  and  25 
not  to  the  bluntness  with  which  he  may  hapjxin  to  express 
it.  It  is  obviously  the  language  of  a  warm  man,  engaged 
in  the  honest  defence  of  his  friend,  and  who  is  brought 
to  what  he  thinks  a  just  conclusion  in  argument,  which 
jM'rhaps  becomes  offensive  in  proportion  to  its  truth.  30 
I'ruth  is  undoubtedly  no  warrant  for  writing  what  is 
reproachful  of  any  private  man.  If  a  member  of  society 
lives  within  the  law,  then,  if  he  offends,  it  is  against  God 
alone,  and  man  has  nothing  to  do  with  him ;  and  if  he 
transgress  tlje  laws,  the  liU^ller  should  arrai-^n  liim  ]>efore  :V5 


170  KrsLlnr. 

them,  instead  of  presuming  to  trj'  him  himself.  But  as 
to  writings  on  general  sulijfcts,  whicli  arc  not  charged  as 
an  infringement  on  the  rights  oi  individuals,  hnt  as  of  a 
seditious  tendency,  it  is  far  otherwise.  Winn,  in  the 
5  progress  either  of  legislation  or  of  high  national  jus- 
tice in  Parliament,  they  who  are  amenable  to  no  law  are 
supposed  to  have  adopted,  thi(«uL,'li  mistake  or  error,  a 
principle  which,  if  di-awn  into  luvcrch-nt,  mi.L,dit  be  dan- 
gerous to  the  public,  1  shiUl  not  admit  it  to  be  a  libel  in 

10  the  course  of  a  legal  and  bond  fide  publication  to  state 
that  such  a  principle  had  in  fiict  been  adopted.  The  peo- 
ple of  England  are  not  to  ki  kept  in  the  dark  touching 
the  proceedings  of  their  own  representatives.  Let  us 
therefore  coolly  examine  this  supposed  offence,  and  see 

15  what  it  amounts  to. 

First,  was  not  the  conduct  of  the  right  honorable  gen- 
tleman, whose  name  is  here  mentioned,  exactly  what  it  is 
represented  ?  Will  the  Attorney-General,  who  was  present 
in  the  House  of  Commons,  say  that  it  was  not  ?    Did  not 

20  the  Minister  vindicate  Mr.  Hastings  in  ^\  hat  lie  had  done, 
and  was  not  his  consent  to  that  article  of  the  impeach- 
ment founded  on  the  intention  only  of  levying  a  fine  on 
the  Zemindar  for  the  service  of  the  state,  beyond  the 
quantum  which  he,  the  Minister,  thought  reasonable? 

25  What  else  is  this  but  an  impeachment  of  error  in  judg- 
ment in  the  quantum  of  a  fine  ? 

So  much  for  the  first  part  of  the  sentence,  which, 
regarding  Mr.  Pitt  only,  is  foreign  to  our  purpose ;  and 
as  to  the  last  part  of  it,  which  imputes  the  sentiments  of 

30  the  Minister  to  the  majority  that  followed  him  with  their 
votes  on  the  question,  that  appears  to  me  to  be  giving 
handsome  credit  to  the  majority  for  having  voted  from 
conviction,  and  not  from  courtesy  to  the  Minister.  To 
have  supposed  otherwise  I  dare  not  say  would  have  been 

35  a  more  natural  libel,  but  it  would  certainly  have  been  a 


In  the  Stockdale  Case,  171 

crreater  one.  The  sum  and  substance  therefore  of  the 
aragraph  is  only  this :  that  an  impeachment  for  error  in 
judgment  is  not  consistent  with  the  theory  or  the  practice 
of  the  English  Government.  So  say  I.  I  say  without 
reserve,  si)eaking  merely  in  the  abstract,  and  not  mean-  5 
ing  to  decide  nipon  the  merits  of  Mr.  Hastings's  cause, 
that  an  impeachment  for  an  error  in  judgment  is  con- 
trary to  the  whole  spirit  of  English  criminal  justice, 
wliich,  though  not  binding  on  the  House  of  Commons, 
ought  to  be  a  guide  to  its  proceedings.  I  say  that  the  10 
•  xtraordinary  jurisdiction  of  impeachment  ought  never 
to  1x3  assumed  to  exi)ose  error,  or  to  scourge  misfortune, 
hut  to  hold  up  a  terrible  example  to  corruption  and  wil- 
t  ul  abuse  of  authority,  by  extra-legal  pains.  If  public 
men  are  always  punished  with  due  severity  when  the  15 
ource  of  their  misconduct  appears  to  have  been  selfishly 
I  orrupt  and  criminal,  the  public  can  never  suffer  when 
their  errors  are  treated  with  gentleness.  From  such  pro- 
tection to  the  magistrate,  no  man  can  think  lightly  of  the 
charge  of  magistracy  itself,  when  he  sees,  by  the  Ian-  20 
guage  of  tlie  saving  judgment,  that  the  only  title  to  it  is 
an  honest  and  zealous  intention.  If  at  this  moment, 
gentlemen,  or  indeed  in  any  other  in  the  whole  course 
of  our  history,  the  people  of  England  were  to  call  upon 
every  man  in  this  imj^eaching  House  of  Commons  who  25 
liad  given  his  voice  on  public  questions,  or  acted  in 
authority,  civil  or  military,  to  answer  for  the  issues  of 
our  councils  and  our  wars,  and  if  honest,  single  intentions 
for  the  public  service  were  refused  as  answers  to  impeach- 
ments, we  should  have  many  relations  to  mourn  for,  and  30 
many  friends  to  deplore.  For  my  own  part,  gentlemen, 
r  feel,  I  hope,  for  my  country  as  much  as  any  man  that 
inhabits  it;  but  I  would  rather  see  it  fall,  and  be  buried 
in  its  ruins,  than  lend  my  voice  to  womid  any  Minister, 
or  otlipr  responsible  person,  however  imfortunate,  who  35 


172  Er  shine. 

had  fairly  followed  the  lights  of  his  understanding  and 
the  dictates  of  his  conscience  for  its  preservation. 

Gentlemen,  this  is  no  theory  of  mine;  it  is  tlie  lan- 
guage of  English  law,  and  the  protection  which  it  affords 

5  to  every  man  in  office,  from  the  highest  to  the  lowest 
trust  of  government.  In  no  one  instance  that  can  be 
named,  foreign  or  domestic,  did  the  Court  of  King's 
Bench  ever  interpose  its  extraordinary  jurisdiction  by 
information  against  any  magistrate  for  the  widest  depart- 

10  ure  from  the  rule  of  his  duty,  without  the  plainest  and 
clearest  proof  of  corruption.  To  every  such  application, 
not  so  supported,  the  constant  answer  has  been,  Go  to  a 
Grand  Jury  with  your  complaint.  God  forbid  that  a  ma- 
gistrate should  suffer  from  an  error  in  judgment,  if  his 

15  purpose  was  honestly  to  discharge  his  trust.  We  cannot 
stop  the  ordinary  course  of  justice;  but  whesever  the 
court  has  a  discretion,  such  a  magistrate  is  entitled  to  its 
protection.  I  appeal  to  the  noble  judge,  and  to  every 
man  who  hears  me,  for  the  truth  and  universality  of  this 

20  position ;  and  it  would  be  a  strange  solecism  indeed  to 
assert  that  in  a  case  where  the  supreme  court  of  criminal 
justice  in  the  nation  would  refuse  to  interpose  an  extraor- 
dinary though  a  legal  jurisdiction,  on  the  principle  that 
the   ordinary   execution   of    the   laws   should   never  be 

25  exceeded  but  for  the  punishment  of  malignant  guilt, 
the  Commons,  in  their  higher  capacity,  growing  out  of 
the  same  Constitution,  should  reject  that  principle,  and 
stretch  them  yet  further  by  a  jurisdiction  still  more 
eccentric.     Many  impeachments   have   taken  place,  be- 

30  cause  the  law  could  not  adequately  punish  the  objects 
of  them ;  but  who  ever  heard  of  one  being  set  on  foot 
because  the  law,  upon  principle,  would  not  punish  them  ? 
Many  impeachments  hav^e  been  adopted  for  a  higher 
example  than  a  prosecution  in  the  ordinary  courts,  but 

35  surely  never  for  a  different  example.     The  matter,  there- 


In  the  Stockdale  Case,  173 

fore,  in  the  offensive  paragraph  is  not  only  an  indisputa- 
ble truth,  but  a  truth  in  the  propagation  of  which  we  are 
all  deeply  concerned. 

Whether  Mr.  Hastings,  in  the  particular  instance,  acted 
from  corruption  or  from  zeal  for  his  employers,  is  what  I  5 
have  nothing  to  do  with ;  it  is  to  be  decided  in  judgment; 
my  duty  stops  with  wishing  him,  as  I  do,  an  honorable 
deliverance.     Whether  the    Minister   or   the    Commons 
meant  to  found    tliis   article   of    the   impeachment  on 
mere  error,  without    corruption,  is  likewise  foreign  to  lo 
the  purpose.     The  author  could  only  judge  from  what 
was  said  and  done  on  the  occasion.     He  only  sought  to 
guard  the  principle,  which  is  a  common  interest,  and  the 
rights  of  Mr.  Hastings  under  it.     He  was,  therefore,  jus- 
tified  in   publishing  that  an  impeachment,  founded  in  15 
error  in  judgment,  was  to  all  intents  and  purposes  ille- 
gal, unconstitutional,  and  unjust. 

Grentlemen,  it  is  now  time  for  us  to  return  again  to  the 
work  under  examination.  The  author  having  discussed 
the  whole  of  the  first  article  through  so  many  pages,  20 
without  even  the  imputation  of  an  incorrect  or  intem- 
perate expression,  except  in  the  concluding  passage  (the 
meaning  of  which  I  trust  I  have  explained),  goes  on  with 
the  same  earnest  disjwsition  to  the  discussion  of  the 
second  charge  respecting  the  princesses  of  Oude,  which  25 
occupies  eighteen  pages,  not  one  syllable  of  which  the 
Attorney-General  has  read,  and  in  which  there  is  not  even 
a  glance  at  the  House  of  Commons.  The  whole  of  this 
answer  is,  indeed,  so  far  from  being  a  mere  cloak  for  the 
introduction  of  slander,  that  I  aver  it  to  be  one  of  the  30 
most  masterly  pieces  of  writing  I  ever  read  in  my  life. 
From  thence  he  goes  on  to  the  charge  of  contracts  and 
salaries,  which  occupies  five  pages  more,  in  which  there 
is  not  a  glance  at  the  House  of  Commons,  nor  a  word 
read  by  the  Attorney-General.    He  afterward  defends  3» 


174  Erskine, 

Mr.  Hastings  against  the  charges  respecting  the  opium 
contract.  Not  a  glance  at  the  House  of  Commons ;  not  a 
word  by  the  Attomey-Greneral ;  and,  in  short,  in  this 
manner  he  goes  on  with  the  others,  to  the  end  of  the 
5  book. 

Now,  is  it  possible  for  any  Imman  being  to  believe  that 
a  man,  having  no  other  intention  than  to  vilify  the  House 
of  Commons  (as  tliis  information  charges),  should  yet 
keep  his  mind  thus  fixed  and  settled  as  the  needle  to  the 

10  pole,  upon  the  serious  merits  of  Mr.  Hastings's  defence, 
without  ever  straying  into  matter  even  questionable, 
except  in  the  two  or  three  selected  parts  out  of  two  or 
three  hundred  pages  ?  This  is  a  forbearance  which  could 
not  have  existed,  if  calumny  and  detraction  had  been  the 

15  malignant  objects  which  led  him  to  the  inquiry  and  pub- 
lication. The  whole  fallacy,  therefore,  arises  from  hold- 
ing up  to  view  a  few  detached  passages,  and  carefully 
concealing  the  general  tenor  of  the  book. 

Having  now  finished  most,  if  not  all,  of  these  critical 

20  observations  which  it  has  been  my  duty  to  make  upon 
this  unfair  mode  of  prosecution,  it  is  but  a  tribute  of 
common  justice  to  the  Attorney-General  (and  which  my 
personal  regard  for  him  makes  it  more  pleasant  to  pay), 
that  none  of  my  commentaries  reflect  in  the  most  dis- 

2,5  tant  manner  upon  liim ;  nor  upon  the  Solicitor  for  the 
Crown,  who  sits  near  me,  who  is  a  person  of  the  most 
correct  honor,  —  far  from  iL  The  Attorney-General 
having  orders  to  prosecute  in  consequence  of  the  Ad- 
dress of  the  House  to  his  Majesty,  had  no  choice  in  the 

30  mode ;  no  means  at  all  of  keeping  the  prosecutors  before 
you  in  countenance,  but  by  the  course  which  has  been 
pursued.  But  so  far  has  he  been  from  enlisting  into  the 
cause  those  prejudices  which  it  is  not  difficult  to  slide 
into  a  business  originating  from  such  exalted  aui;hority, 

35  he  has  honorably  guarded  you  against  them ;   pressing. 


In  the  Stockdale  Cafe,  175 

indeed,  severely  upon  my  client  with  the  weight  of  his 
ability,  but  not  with  the  glare  and  trappings  of  his  high 
office. 

Gentlemen,  I  wish  that  my  strength  would  enable  me 
to  convince  you  of  the  author's  singleness  of  intention,  6 
and  of  the  merit  and  ability  of  his  work,  by  reading  the 
whole  that  remains  of  it.  But  my  voice  is  already  nearly 
exhausted ;  I  am  sorry  my  client  should  be  a  sufferer  by 
my  infirmity.  One  passage,  however,  is  too  striking  and 
important  to  be  passed  over;  the  rest  I  must  trust  to  lo 
your  private  examination.  The  author  having  discussed 
all  the  charges,  article  by  article,  sums  them  all  up  with 
this  striking  appeal  to  his  readers  :  — 

"The  autlientic  statement  of  facts  which  has  been 
given,  and  the  arguments  which  have  been  employed,  15 
ai-e,  I  think,  sufficient  to  vindicate  the  character  and 
conduct  of  Mr.  Hastings,  even  on  the  maxims  of  Euro- 
pean policy.  Wlien  he  was  apix>inted  Grovernor-General 
of  Bengal  he  was  invested  with  a  discretionary  power  to 
promote  the  interests  of  the  India  Company  and  of  the  20 
1  British  empire  in  that  quarter  of  the  globe.  The  general 
instructions  sent  to  him  from  his  constituents  were,  *  That 
in  all  your  deliberations  and  re^olutionSy  you  make  the 
sofefy  and  prosperity  of  Bengal  your  principal  ohjecty 
and  Jix  your  attention  on  the  security  of  the  possessions  25 
and  revenues  of  the  Company.^  His  superior  genius 
sometimes  acted  in  the  spirit,  rather  than  complied  with 
the  letter  of  the  law ;  but  he  discharged  the  trust,  and 
])reserved  the  empire  committed  to  his  care  in  the  same 
way,  and  with  greater  splendor  and  success  than  any  of  30 
his  predecessors  in  office ;  his  departure  from  India  was 
marked  with  the  lamentations  of  the  natives  and  the 
gratitude  <jf  his  countrymen ;  and,  on  liis  return  to  Eng- 
land, he  received  the  cordial  congratulations  of  that 
nunurons    and    rospectable    society   whose   interests   he  36 


176  Erskine. 

had  promoted,  and  whose  dominions  lie  had  protected 
and  extended." 

Gentlemen   of  tlie  Jury,   if  this   be  a  wilfully  false 
account    of    the    instructions    given    to    Mr.    Hastings 

6  for  his  government,  and  of  his  conduct  under  them, 
the  author  and  publisher  of  this  defence  deserve  the 
severest  punishment  for  a  mercenary  imposition  on 
the  public.  But  if  it  be  true  that  he  was  directed  to 
make  the  safety  and  prosperity  of  Bengal  the  first  object 

10  of  his  attention,  and  that  under  his  administration  it 
has  been  safe  and  prosi^erous ;  if  it  be  true  that  the 
security  and  preservation  of  our  ]K)ssessions  and  reve- 
nues in  Asia  were  marked  out  to  him  as  the  great 
leading   principle   of    his   government,   and   that  those 

15  possessions  and  revenues,  amidst  unexampled  dangers, 
have  been  secured  and  preserved ;  then  a  question  may 
be  unaccountably  mixed  with  your  consideration  much 
beyond  the  consequence  of  the  present  prosecution, 
involving,  perhaps,  the  merit  of  the  impeachment  itself 

20  which  gave  it  birth ;  a  question  which  the  Commons,  as 
prosecutors  of  Mr.  Hastings,  should  in  common  prudence 
have  avoided,  unless,  regretting  the  unwieldy  length  of 
their  proceedings  against  him,  they  wished  to  afford 
him  the  opportunity  of  this  strange,  anomalous  defence ; 

25  since  although  I  am  neither  his  counsel,  nor  desire  to 
have  anything  to  do  with  his  guilt  or  innocence,  yet  in 
the  collateral  defence  of  my  client  I  am  driven  to  state 
matter  which  may  be  considered  by  many  as  hostile  to 
the  impeachment.     For  if  our  dependencies  have  been 

30  secured,  and  their  interests  promoted,  I  am  driven  in 
the  defence  of  my  client  to  remark  that  it  is  mad  and 
preposterous  to  bring  to  the  standard  of  justice  and 
humanity  the  exercise  of  a  dominion  founded  upon  vio- 
lence and  terror.     It  may  and  must  be  true  that  Mr. 

85  Hastings  has  repeatedly  offended  against  the  rights  and 


In  the  Stockdale  Case.  177 

privileges  of  Asiatic  government,  if  he  was  the  faithful 
deputy  of  a  power  which  could  not  maintain  itself  for 
an  hour  without  trampling  upon  both ;  he  may  and  must 
have  offended  against  the  laws  of  God  and  nature  if  he 
was  the  faithful  viceroy  of  an  empire  wrested  in  blood  5 
from  the  people  to  whom  God  and  nature  had  given  it ; 
he  may  and  must  have  preserved  that  unjust  dominion 
over  timorous  and  abject  nations  by  a  terrifying,  over- 
bearing, insulting  superiority,  if  he  was  the  faithful 
administrator  of  your  government,  which,  having  no  lo 
root  in  consent  or  affection,  no  foundation  in  similarity 
of  interests,  no  support  from  any  one  principle  which 
cements  men  together  in  society,  could  be  upheld  only 
by  alternate  stratagem  and  force.  The  unhappy  people 
of  India,  feeble  and  effeminate  as  they  are  from  the  soft- 15 
ness  of  their  climate,  and  subdued  and  broken  as  they 
have  been  by  the  knavery  and  strength  of  civilization, 
still  occasionally  start  up  in  all  the  vigor  and  intelligence 
of  insulted  nature.  To  be  governed  at  all,  they  must  be 
governed  with  a  rod  of  iron ;  and  our  empire  in  the  East  20 
would  long  since  have  been  lost  to  Great  Britain  if  civil 
skill  and  military  prowess  had  not  united  their  efforts  to 
support  an  authority  which  Heaven  never  gave,  by  means 
which  it  never  can  sanction. 

Gentlemen,  I  think  I  can  observe  that  you  are  touched  26 
with  this  way  of  considering  the  subject,  and  I  can 
account  for  it.  I  have  not  been  considering  it  through 
the  cold  medium  of  books,  but  have  been  speaking  of 
man  and  his  nature,  and  of  human  dominion,  from  what 
I  have  seen  of  them  myself  amongst  reluctant  nations  30 
submitting  to  our  authority.  I  know  what  they  feel,  and 
how  such  feelings  can  alone  he  repressed.  I  liave  heard 
them  in  my  youth  from  a  naked  savage,  in  the  indignant 
character  of  a  prince  surrounded  by  liis  subjects,  address- 
ing the  governor  of  a  Hritisli  colony,  liolding  a  bundle  of  35 


178  Erskine, 

sticks  ill  his  hand  as  the  notes  of  his  unlettered  elo- 
quence: "Who  is  it/'  said  the  jealous  ruler  over  the 
desert  encroached  upon  by  the  restless  foot  of  English 
adventure,  —  "  who  is  it  that  causes  this  river  to  rise  in 
5  tlie  high  mountains,  and  to  empty  itself  into  the  ocean  ? 
Who  is  it  that  causes  to  blow  the  loud  winds  of  winter, 
and  that  calms  them  again  in  the  summer  ?  Wlio  is  it 
tliat  rears  up  the  shade  of  these  lofty  forests,  and  blasts 
tliem  with  the  quick  lightning  at   his   pleasure?     The 

10  same  Being  who  gave  to  you  a  country  on  the  other  side 
of  the  waters,  and  gave  ours  to  us ;  and  by  this  title  we 
will  defend  it,"  said  the  warrior,  throwing  down  his  toma- 
hawk upon  the  ground,  and  raising  the  war-sound  of  his 
nation.     These  are  the  feelings  of  subjugated  man  all 

16  round  the  globe ;  and,  depend  upon  it,  nothing  but  fear 
will  control  where  it  is  vain  to  look  for  affection. 

These  refle(;tions  are  the  only  antidotes  to  those  anathe- 
mas of  superhuman  eloquence  which  have  lately  shaken 
the  walls  that  surround  us,  but  which  it  unaccountably 

20  falls  to  my  province,  whether  I  will  or  no,  a  little  to  stem 
the  torrent  of  by  reminding  you  that  you  have  a  mighty 
sway  in  Asia  which  cannot  be  maintained  by  the  finer 
sympathies  of  life,  or  the  practice  of  its  charities  and 
atfections.     AVhat  will  they  do  for  you  when  surrounded 

25  by  two  hundred  thousand  men,  with  artillery,  cavalry, 
and  elephants,  calling  upon  you  for  their  dominions 
which  you  have  robbed  tliem  of  ?  Justice  may,  no 
doubt,  in  such  a  case  forbid  the  levying  of  a  fine  to  pay 
a  revolting  soldiery ;   a  treaty  may  stand  in  the  way  of 

30  increasing  a  tribute  to  keep  up  the  very  existence  of  the 
government ;  and  delicacy  for  women  may  forbid  all 
entrance  into  a  Zenana  for  money,  whatever  may  be 
the  necessity  for  taking  it.  All  these  things  must  ever 
l)e  occurring.     But  under  the  pressure  of  such  constant 

35  difficulties,  so  dangerous  to  national  honor,  it  might  be 


In  the  Stockdale  Case.  IVJ 

better,  perhaps,  to  think  of  effectually  securing  it 
altogether,  by  recalling  our  troops  and  our  merchants, 
:ind  abandoning  our  Oriental  empire.  Until  this  be 
•  lone,  neither  religion  nor  philosophy  can  be  pressed 
very  far  into  the  aid  of  reformation  and  punishment.  5 
I  f  England,  fi-om  a  lust  of  ambition  and  dominion,  will 
insist  on  maintaining  despotic  rule  over  distant  and 
liostile  nations,  beyond  all  comparison  more  numerous 
iiid  extended  than  herself,  and  gives  commission  to  her 
iceroys  to  govern  them  with  no  other  instiiictions  than  10 
to  preserve  them,  and  to  secure  permanently  their  reve- 
nues ;  with  what  color  of  consistency  or  reason  can  she 
place  herself  in  the  moral  chair,  and  affect  to  be  shocked 
at  the  execution  of  her  own  orders;  adverting  to  the 
exact  measure  of  wickedness  and  injustice  necessary  to  15 
tlieir  execution,  and  complaining  only  of  the  excess  as 
the  immorality ;  considering  her  authority  as  a  dispensa- 
tion for  breaking  the  commands  of  God,  and  the  breach 
of  them  as  only  punishable  when  contrary  to  the  ordi- 
nances of  man  ?  20 

Such  a  proceeding,  gentlemen,  begets  serious  reflec- 
tions. It  would  be  better  perhaps  for  the  masters  and 
tlie  servants  of  all  such  governments  to  join  in  supi)lica- 
t  ion  that  the  great  Author  of  violated  humanity  may  not 
itonfound  them  together  in  one  common  judgment.  26 

Gentlemen,  I  find,  as  I  said  before,  I  have  not  sufficient 
strength  to  go  on  with  the  remaining  parts  of  the  book. 
1  hope,  however,  that  notwithstanding  my  omissions, 
you  are  now  completely  satisfied  that  whatever  errors 
or  misconceptions  may  have  misled  the  writer  of  these  30 
pages,  the  justification  of  a  person  whom  he  believed  to 
be  innocent,  and  whose  accusers  had  themselves  appealed 
to  the  public,  was  the  single  object  of  his  contemplation. 
If  I  have  succeeded  in  that  object,  every  purjwse  which 
I  had  iu  addressing  you  has  been  answered.  35 


18U  Erskine, 

It  only  now  rci  nail  IS  to  n'luiiul  you  tliat  aiiotlicr  ooii- 
sideratiou  has  been  stron.i^ly  prcsstMl  u]m)ii  you,  and.  no 
doubt,  will  1)0  insisted  on  in  reply.  Vou  will  be  told  that 
the  matters  which  I  have  been  justifying  as  legal,  and 
5  even  meritorious,  haxe  therefore  not  been  made  tlic  suh- 
ject  of  complaint:  and  that  whatever  intrinsic  merit 
parts  of  the  hook  may  In*  supposed  or  even  admitted  to 
possess,  such  merit  can  afford  no  justification  to  the 
selected  i)assages,  some  of  wliicli,  even  witli  tlie   con- 

10  text,  carry  the  nu*anin;_:  (diari^n-d  l»y  the  information, 
and  wlii(di  are  indecent  aniniad\  frsions  on  authority. 
To  this  1  would  answiT  (still  protesting  as  I  do  against 
the  application  <  t  any  onf  of  the  innuendoes),  that  if 
you  are  firmly  j)ersuaded  of  the  singleness  and  ]»iuity  of 

15  the  author's  intentions,  you  are  not  bound  to  subject  him 
to  infamy,  because,  in  the  zealous  career  of  a  just  and 
animated  comiX)sition,  he  happens  to  have  trij)ped  with 
his  pen  into  an  intemperate  expression  in  one  or  two 
instances  of  a  long  work.     If  this  severe  duty  \\tr<   1  ind 

20  ing  on  your  consciences,  the  liberty  of  the  press  would 
be  an  empty  sound,  and  no  man  could  venture  to  write 
on  any  subject,  however  pure  his  purpose,  without  an 
attorney  at  one  elbow  and  a  counsel  at  the  other. 

From  minds  thus  sulxlued  by  the  terrors  of  punish- 

25  ment  there  could  issue  no  works  of  g»Mnus  to  expand  the 
empire  of  Imman  reason,  nor  any  masterly  compositions 
on  the  general  nature  of  government,  by  the  help  of 
which  the  great  commonwealtlis  of  mankind  have  founded 
their  establishments  ;  much  less  any  of  those  useful  appli- 

30  cations  of  them  to  critical  conjunctures  by  which,  from 
time  to  time,  our  own  Constitution,  by  the  exertion  of 
patriot  citizens,  has  been  brought  back  to  its  standard. 
Under  such  terrors,  all  the  great  lights  of  science  and 
civilization  must  be  extinguished;  for  men  cannot  coin- 

35  municate  their  free  thoughts  to  one  another  with  a  lash 


In  thy  Stockdale  Cane.  181 

held  over  their  heads,  li  is  \\\v.  naliiie  of  everything 
that  is  great  and  useful,  both  in  the  animate  and  inani- 
mate world,  to  be  wild  and  irregular ;  and  we  must  be 
contented  to  take  them  with  the  alloys  which  belong  to 
them,  or  live  without  them.  Genius  breaks  from  the  5 
fetters  of  criticism ;  but  its  wanderings  are  sanctioned  by- 
its  majesty  and  wisdom,  when  it  advances  in  its  path. 
Subject  it  to  the  critic,  and  you  tame  it  into  dullness. 
Mighty  rivers  break  down  their  banks  in  the  winter, 
sweeping  away  to  death  the  flocks  which  are  fattened  on  lo 
the  soil  that  they  fertilize  in  the  summer ;  the  few  may 
be  saved  by  embankments  from  drowning,  but  the  flock 
must  perish  for  hunger.  Tempests  occasionally  shake 
our  dwellings  and  dissipate  our  commerce;  but  they 
scourge  before  them  the  lazy  elements  which,  without  15 
them,  would  stagnate  into  pestilence.  In  like  manner 
Liberty  herself,  the  last  and  best  gift  of  God  to  his 
creatures,  must  be  taken  just  as  she  is :  you  might  pare 
her  do^^^l  into  bashful  regularity,  and  shape  her  into  a 
perfect  model  of  severe,  scrupulous  law,  but  she  would  20 
then  be  Liberty  no  longer ;  and  you  must  be  content  to 
die  under  the  lash  of  this  inexorable  justice  which  you 
had  exchanged  for  the  banners  of  Freedom. 

If  it  be  asked  where  the  line  to  this  indulgence  and 
impunity  is  to  be  drawn,  the  answer  is  easy.  The  liberty  25 
of  the  press,  on  general  subjects,  comprehends  and  im- 
plies as  much  strict  observance  of  positive  law  as  is  con- 
sistent with  perfect  purity  of  intention  and  equal  and 
useful  society.  What  that  latitude  is  cannot  be  promul- 
gated in  the  abstract,  but  must  be  judged  of  in  the  30 
particular  instance ;  and  consequently,  upon  this  occasion, 
must  be  judged  of  by  you  without  forming  any  possible 
precedent  for  any  other  case ;  and  where  can  the  judg- 
ment be  possibly  so  safe  as  with  the  members  of  that 
society  which  alone  can  suffer,  if  the  writing  is  calculated  SS 


182  Urskine.    . 

to  do  mischief  to  the  public  ?  You  must,  therefore,  try 
the  book  by  that  criterion,  and  say  whether  the  publica- 
tion was  premature  and  offensive;  or,  in  other  words, 
whether  the  publisher  was  bound  to  have  suppressed  it 
5  until  the  public  ear  was  anticipated  and  abused,  and  every 
avenue  to  the  human  heart  or  understanding  secured  and 
blocked  up  ?  I  see  around  me  those  by  whom,  by  and  by, 
Mr.  Hastings  will  be  most  ably  and  eloquently  defended ; 
but  I  am  sorry  to  remind  my  friends  that,  but  for  the 

10  riglit  of  suspending  the  public  judgment  concerning  him 
till  their  season  of  exertion  comes  round,  the  tongues  of 
angels  would  be  insufficient  for  the  task. 

Gentlemen,  I  hoj)e  I  have  now  jierformed  my  duty  to 
my  client  —  I  sincerely  hope  that  I   have ;  for,  certainly, 

15  if  ever  there  was  a  man  pulled  the  other  way  by  his  in- 
terests and  affections,  if  ever  there  was  a  man  who  should 
have  trembled  at  the  situation  in  which  I  have  been 
j)laced  on  this  occasion,  it  is  myself,  who  not  only  love, 
honor,  and  respect,  but  whose  future  hopes  and  prefer- 

20  ments  are  linked,  from  free  choice,  with  those  who,  from 
the  mistakes  of  the  author,  are  treated  with  great  sever- 
ity and  injustice.  These  are  strong  retardments ;  but 
I  have  been  urged  on  to  activity  by  considerations  which 
can  never  be  inconsistent  with  honorable  attachments, 

25  either  in  the  political  or  social  world  —  the  love  of  jus- 
tice and  of  liberty,  and  a  zeal  for  the  Constitution  of  my 
country,  which  is  the  inheritance  of  our  posterity,  of  the 
public,  and  of  the  world.  These  are  the  motives  which 
have  animated  me  in  defence  of  this  person,  who  is  an 

30  entire  stranger  to  me ;  whose  shop  I  never  go  to ;  and 
the  author  of  whose  publication  —  or  Mr.  Hastings,  who 
is  the  object  of  it  —  I  never  spoke  to  in  my  life. 

One  word  more,  gentlemen,  and  I  have  done.     Every 
human  tribunal  ought  to  take  care  to  administer  justice 

35  as  we  look  hereafter  to  have    justice  administered  to 


In  the  Stockdale  Case,  183 

ourselves.  Upon  the  principle  on  which  the  Attorney- 
Greneral  prays  sentence  upon  my  client —  God  have  mercy 
upon  us !  Instead  of  standing  before  him  in  judgment 
with  the  hopes  and  consolations  of  Christians,  we  must 
call  ujwn  the  mountains  to  cover  us  ;  for  which  of  us  can  5 
present,  for  omniscient  examination,  a  pure,  unspotted, 
and  faultless  course?  But  I  humbly  expect  that  the 
benevolent  Author  of  our  being  will  judge  us  as  I  have 
been  pointing  out  for  your  example.  Holding  up  the 
great  volume  of  our  lives  in  his  hands,  and  regarding  the  lo 
general  scope  of  them  —  if  he  discovers  benevolence, 
charity,  and  good-will  to  man  beating  in  the  heart,  where 
he  alone  can  look ;  if  he  finds  that  our  conduct,  though 
often  forced  out  of  the  path  by  our  infirmities,  has  been 
in  general  well  directed ;  his  all-searching  eye  will  as- 13 
suredly  never  pursue  us  into  those  little  corners  of  our 
lives,  much  less  will  his  justice  select  them  for  punish- 
ment without  the  genei-al  context  of  our  existence,  by 
which  faults  may  be  sometimes  found  to  have  grown  out 
of  virtues,  and  very  many  of  our  heaviest  offences  to  20 
have  been  grafted  by  human  imperfection  upon  the  best 
and  kindest  of  our  affections.  No,  gentlemen,  believe 
me,  this  is  not  the  course  of  divine  justice,  or  there  is  no 
truth  in  the  Gospels  of  Heaven.  If  the  general  tenor  of 
a  man's  conduct  be  such  as  I  have  represented  it,  he  may  25 
walk  through  the  shadow  of  death,  with  all  his  faults 
about  him,  with  as  much  cheerfulness  as  in  the  common 
paths  of  life  ;  because  he  knows  that,  instead  of  a  stern 
accuser  to  expose  before  the  Author  of  his  nature  those 
frail  passages  which,  like  the  scored  matter  in  the  book  30 
before  you,  checker  the  volume  of  the  brightest  and  best- 
spent  life,  his  mercy  will  obscure  them  from  the  eye  of 
his  purity,  and  our  repentance  blot  them  out  forever. 

All  this  would,  I  admit,  be  perfectly  foreign  and  irrele- 
vant if  you  were  sitting  here  in  a  case  of  property  be-  3ft 


184  Enk 


ine. 


between  man  and  man,  where  a  strict  rule  of  law  must 
operate,  or  there  would  be  an  end  of  civil  life  and  society. 
It  would  be  equally  foreign,  and  still  more  irrelevant,  if 
applied  to  those  shameful  attacks  upon  private  reputation 
5  which  are  the  bane  and  disgrace  of  the  press ;  by  which 
whole  families  have  been  rendered  unhappy  during  life 
by  aspersions  cruel,  scandalous,  and  unjust.  Let  such 
libellers  remember  that  no  one  of  my  principles  of  de- 
fence can,  at  any  time,  or  ujwn  any  occasion,  ever  apply 

10  to  shield  them  from  punishment ;  because  such  conduct  is 
not  only  an  infringement  of  the  rights  of  men,  as  they  are 
defined  by  strict  law,  but  is  absolutely  incompatible  with 
honor,  honesty,  or  mistaken  good  intention.  On  such  men 
let  the  Attorney-General  bring  forth  all  the  artillery  of 

15  his  office,  and  the  thanks  and  blessings  of  the  whole  pub- 
lic will  follow  him.  But  this  is  a  totally  different  case. 
Whatever  private  calumny  may  mark  this  work,  it  has 
not  been  made  the  subject  of  complaint,  and  we  have 
therefore  nothing  to  do  with  that,  nor  any  right  to  con- 

20  sider  it.  We  are  trying  whether  the  public  could  have 
been  considered  as  offended  and  endangered  if  Mr. 
Hastings  himself,  in  whose  place  the  author  and  pub- 
lisher have  a  right  to  put  themselves,  had,  under  all  the 
circumstances  which  have  been  considered,  composed  and 

25  published  the  volume  under  examination.  That  question 
cannot,  in  common  sense,  be  anything  resembling  a  ques- 
tion of  law,  but  is  a  pure  question  of  fact,  to  be  decided 
on  the  principles  which  I  have  humbly  recommended.  I 
therefore  ask  of  the  Court  that  the  book  itself  may  now 

30  be  delivered  to  you.  Read  it  with  attention,  and  as  you 
shall  find  it,  pronounce  your  verdict. 


DANIEL  WEBSTER 


REPLY   TO   HAYNE;  IN   THE   UNITED   STATES   SENATE, 
JANUARY   26,  1830. 


Mr.  Presidext,  —  When  the  mariner  has  been  tossed 
for  many  days  in  thick  weather,  and  on  an  unknown  sea, 
he  naturally  avails  himself  of  the  first  pause  in  the  storm, 
the  eiarliest  glance  of  the  sun,  to  take  his  latitude,  and 
ascertain  how  far  the  elements  have  driven  him  from  his  5 
true  course.  Let  us  imitate  this  prudence,  and  before 
we  float  farther  on  the  waves  of  this  debate,  refer  to  the 
point  from  which  we  departed,  that  we  may  at  least 
be  able  to  conjecture  where  we  now  are.  I  ask  for  the 
reading  of  the  resolution  before  the  Senate.  lO 

The  Secretary  read  the  resolution,  as  follows :  — 

"  Reaolvedj  That  the  Committee  on  Public  Lands  be  instnicted 
to  Inquire  and  report  the  quantity  of  public  lands  remaining 
imsold  within  each  State  and  Territory,  and  whether  it  be 
expedient  to  limit  for  a  certain  period  the  sales  of  the  pub-  15 
lie  lands  to  such  lands  only  as  have  heretofore  been  offered 
for  sale,  and  are  now  subject  to  entry  at  the  minimum  price. 
And,  also,  whether  the  office  of  Surve^r-General,  and  some 
of  the  land  offices,  may  not  be  abolished  without  detriment 
to  the  public  interest;  or  whether  it  be  expedient  to  adopt  20 
measures  to  hasten  the  sales  and  extend  more  rapidly  the 
tnxveya  of  the  public  lands.*' 

We  have  thus  heard,  Sir,  what  the  resolution  is  which 
is  actually  before  us  for  consideration ;  and  it  will  readily 
occur  to  every  one  that  it  is  almost  the  only  subject  25 

185 


186  If.  v.'-/-. 

about  wliicli  soiiiftliin;.,^  ]i;i^  imt  lirm  >a],\  in  tli.'  >jkmc1i, 
runiiiiii;  through  two  days,  by  \vlii(  h  the  Senate  has 
been  entertained  by  the  gentleman  iioiu  South  Carolina. 
Every  topic  in  the  wide  range  of  our  public  affairs, 
r>  whether  past  or  present  —  everything,  general  or  local. 
whetlier  belonging  to  national  polities  or  party  polities 
—  seems  to  have  attracted  more  or  less  of  the  honorable 
member's  attention,  save  only  the  rcsolutii^n  l)cfore  the 
Senat(».     He  has  spoken  of  everytliin -^  Imt    tlic   imLlif 

inlands;  tlicv  have  escaped  his  no' 
in  all  his  excursions,  he  has  not   paid  even   the   cold 
respect  of  a  passing  glance. 

When  this  debate.  Sir,  was  to  be  i<  suni.d  mi    I  hms- 
day  morning,  it  so  happened  that  it  would  have  been 

15  convenient  for  me  to  be  elsewhere.  The  honorable  mem- 
ber, however,  did  not  ini  line  to  ])ut  oif  the  discussion 
to  another  day.  He  had  a  shot,  he  said,  to  return,  and 
he  wished  to  discharge  it.  That  shot,  Sir,  which  he  thus 
kindly  informed  us  was  eoming,  that  we  might  stand  out 

20  of  the  way,  or  prepare  ourselves  to  fall  by  it  and  die 
with  decency,  has  now  been  received.  Cnder  all  advan- 
tages, and  with  expectation  awakened  by  the  tone  which 
preceded  it,  it  has  been  discharged,  and  has  spent  its 
force.     It  may  l)ecome  me  to  say  no  more  of  its  effect, 

25  than  that,  if  nobody  is  found,  after  all,  either  killed  or 
wounded,  it  is  not  the  first  time  in  the  history  of  human 
atTaiis  that  the  vigor  and  success  of  the  war  have  not 
quite  come  up  to*the  lofty  and  sounding  phrase  of  the 
manifesto. 

30  The  gentleman.  Sir,  in  declining  to  postpone  the  de- 
bate, told  the  Senate,  with  the  emphasis  of  his  hand 
upon  his  heart,  that  there  was  something  rankling  herej 
which  he  wished  to  relieve. 

[Mr.  Hayne  rose,  and  disclaimed  having  used  the  word  rank- 
35  ling.] 


Reply  to  Hayne.  187 

It  would  not,  Mr.  President,  be  safe  for  the  honorable 
member  to  appeal  to  those  around  him  upon  the  ques- 
tion whether  he  did,  in  fact,  make  use  of  that  word. 
But  ho  may  have  been  unconscious  of  it.  At  any  rate, 
it  is  enough  that  he  disclaims  it.  But  still,  with  or  with-  5 
out  the  use  of  that  particular  word,  he  had  yet  something 
herBy  he  said,  of  which  he  wished  to  rid  himself  by  an 
immediate  reply.  In  this  respect.  Sir,  I  have  a  great 
advantage  over  the  honorable  gentleman.  There  is  noth- 
ing herBy  Sir,  which  gives  me  the  slightest  uneasiness ;  lo 
neither  fear,  nor  anger,  nor  that  which  is  sometimes  more 
troublesome  than  either,  the  consciousness  of  having  been 
in  the  wrong.  There  is  nothing  either  originating  here, 
or  now  received  here  by  the  gentleman's  shot.  Nothing 
originating  here,  for  I  had  not  the  slightest  feeling  of  15 
unkindness  towards  the  honorable  member.  Some  pas- 
sages, it  is  true,  had  occurred  since  our  acquaintance  in 
this  body  which  I  could  have  wished  might  have  been 
otherwise ;  but  I  had  used  philosophy,  and  forgotten  them. 
I  paid  the  honorable  member  the  attention  of  listening  20 
with  respect  to  his  first  speech  ;  and  when  he  sat  down, 
though  surprised,  and  I  must  even  say  astonished,  at 
some  of  his  opinions,  nothing  was  farther  from  my  in- 
tention than  to  commence  any  personal  warfare.  Through 
the  whole  of  the  few  remarks  I  made  in  answer,  I  avoided,  25 
studiously  and  carefully,  everything  which  I  thought 
possible  to  be  construed  into  disrespect.  And,  Sir,  while 
there  is  thus  nothing  originating  here  which  I  have 
wished  at  any  time,  or  now  wish,  to  discharge,  I  must 
repeat,  also,  that  nothing  has  been  received  here  which  30 
rankles,  or  in  any  way  gives  me  annoyance.  I  will  not 
accuse  the  honorable  meml)er  of  violating  the  niles  of 
civilized  war  —  I  will  not  say  that  he  poisoned  his  arrows. 
But  whether  his  shafts  were,  or  were  not,  dipped  in  that 
which  would  have  caused  rankling,  if  they  had  reached  35 


188  Webster. 

their  destination,  there  was  not,  as  it  happened,  quite 
strength  enough  in  the  bow  to  bring  them  to  their  mark. 
If  he  wishes  now  to  gather  up  those  shafts,  he  must  look 
for  them  elsewhere;  they  will  not  be  found  fixed  and 

5  quivering  in  the  object  at  which  they  were  aimed. 

The  honorable  member  complained  that  I  had  slept 
on  his  speech.  I  must  have  slept  on  it,  or  not  slept  at 
all.  The  moment  the  honorable  member  sat  down,  his 
friend  from  Missouri  rose,  and,  with  much  honeyed  com- 

10  mendation  of  the  speech,  suggested  that  the  impressions 
which  it  had  produced  were  too  charming  and  delightful 
to  be  disturbed  by  other  sentiments  or  other  sounds,  and 
proposed  that  the  Senate  should  adjourn.  Would  it  have 
been  quite  amiable  in  me,  Sir,  to  interrupt  this  excellent 

15  good  feeling  ?  Must  I  not  have  been  absolutely  mali- 
cious, if  I  could  have  thrust  myself  forward  to  destroy 
sensations  thus  pleasing  ?  Was  it  not  much  better  and 
kinder,  both  to  sleep  upon  them  myself,  and  to  allow 
others  also  the  pleasure  of  sleeping  upon  them?    But 

20  if  it  be  meant,  by  sleeping  upon  his  speech,  that  I  took 
time  to  prepare  a  reply  to  it,  it  is  quite  a  mistake.  Owing 
to  other  engagements  I  could  not  employ  even  the  inter- 
val between  the  adjournment  of  the  Senate  and  its  meet- 
ing the  next  morning  in  attention  to  the  subject  of  this 

25  debate.  Nevertheless,  Sir,  the  mere  matter  of  fact  is 
undoubtedly  true.  I  did  sleep  on  the  gentleman's  speech, 
and  slept  soundly.  And  I  slept  equally  well  on  his  speech 
of  yesterday,  to  which  I  am  now  replying.  It  is  quite 
possible  that  in  this  respect,  also,  I  possess  some  advan- 

30  tage  over  the  honorable  member,  attributable,  doubtless, 
to  a  cooler  temperament  on  my  part ;  for,  in  truth,  I  slept 
upon  his  speeches  remarkably  well. 

But  the  gentleman  inquires  why  he  was  made  the  ob- 
ject of  such  a  reply  ?     Why  was  he  singled  out  ?     If  an 

35  attack  has  been  made  on  the  East,  he,  he  assures  us,  did 


Reply  to  Hayne,  189 

not  begin  it;  it  was  matle  by  the  gentleman  from  Mis- 
souri. Sir,  I  answered  the  gentleman's  speech  because  I 
happened  to  hear  it;  and  because, also,  I  chose  to  give 
an  answer  to  that  speech,  which,  if  unanswered,  I  thought 
most  likely  to  produce  injurious  impressions.  I  did  not  5 
stop  to  inquire  who  was  the  original  drawer  of  the  bill. 
I  found  a  responsible  indorser  before  me,  and  it  was  my 
purpose  to  hold  him  liable,  and  to  bring  him  to  his  just 
res|X)nsibility  without  delay.  But,  Sir,  this  interrogatory 
of  the  honorable  member  was  only  introductory  to  another,  lo 
He  proceeded  to  ask  me  whether  I  had  turned  upon  him, 
in  this  debate,  from  the  consciousness  that  I  should  find 
an  overmatch,  if  I  ventured  on  a  contest  with  his  friend 
from  Missouri.  If,  Sir,  the  honoi-able  member,  modestioi 
gratiuy  had  chosen  thus  to  defer  to  his  friend,  and  to  pay  15 
him  a  compliment,  without  intentional  disparagement  to 
others,  it  would  have  been  quite  according  to  tlie  friendly 
courtesies  of  debate,  and  not  at  all  ungi-ateful  to  my  own 
feelings.  I  am  not  one  of  those,  Sir,  who  esteem  any 
tribute  of  regard,  whether  light  and  occasional,  or  more  20 
serious  and  deliberate,  which  may  be  bestowed  on  others, 
as  so  much  unjustly  withholden  from  themselves.  But 
the  tone  and  manner  of  the  gentleman's  question  forbid 
me  thus  to  interpret  it.  I  am  not  at  liberty  to  consider 
it  as  nothing  more  than  a  civility  to  his  friend.  It  had  'in 
an  air  of  taunt  and  dispai-agement,  something  of  the  lofti- 
ness of  asserted  superiority,  which  does  not  allow  me  to 
pass  it  over  without  notice.  It  was  put  as  a  question 
for  me  to  answer,  and  so  put  as  if  it  were  difficult  for 
ine  to  answer,  whether  I  deemed  tlie  member  from  Mis-  m 
souri  an  overmatch  for  myself  in  debate  here.  It  seems 
to  me,  Sir,  that  this  is  extraordinary  language,  and  an 
extraordinary  tone,  for  the  discussions  of  tliis  body. 

Matches  and  overmatches  !    Those  tenns  are  more  ajv 
plicable  elsewhere  than  here,  and  fitter  for  other  assem-  36 


190  Webster, 

blies  than  this.  Sir,  the  gentleman  seems  to  forget 
where  and  what  we  are.  This  is  a  Senate  —  a  Senate 
of  equals,  of  men  of  individual  honor  and  personal  char- 
acter, and  of  absolute  independence.  We  know  no  mas- 
5ter8,  we  acknowledge  no  dictators.  This  is  a  hall  for 
mutual  consultation  and  discussion  ;  not  an  arena  for  the 
exhibition  of  champions.  I  offer  myself.  Sir,  as  a  match 
for  no  man ;  I  throw  the  challenge  of  debate  at  no  man's 
feet.     But  then,  Sir,  since  the  honorable  member  has  put 

10  the  question  in  a  manner  that  calls  for  an  answer,  I  will 
give  him  an  answer ;  and  I  tell  him  that,  holding  my- 
self to  be  the  humblest  of  the  members  here,  I  yet  know 
nothing  in  the  arm  of  his  friend  from  Missouri,  eitlier 
alone,  or  when  aided  by  the  arm  of  his  friend  from  South 

15  Carolina,  that  need  deter  even  me  from  esix>using  what- 
ever opinions  I  may  choose  to  esjx)use,  from  debating 
whenever  I  may  choose  to  debate,  or  from  speaking  what- 
ever I  may  see  fit  to  say,  on  the  floor  of  the  Senate.  Sir, 
when  uttered  as  matter  of  commendation  or  compliment, 

20  I  should  dissent  from  nothing  which  the  honorable  mem- 
ber might  say  of  his  friend.  Still  less  do  I  put  forth 
any  pretensions  of  my  own.  But  when  put  to  me  as 
matter  of  taunt,  I  throw  it  back,  and  say  to  the  gentle- 
man that  he  could  possibly  say  nothing  less  likely  than 

25  such  a  comparison  to  wound  my  pride  of  personal  char- 
acter. The  anger  of  its  tone  rescued  the  remark  from 
intentional  irony,  which  otherwise,  probably,  would  have 
been  its  general  acceptation.  But,  Sir,  if  it  be  imagined 
that  by  this  mutual  quotation  and  commendation  ;  if  it 

30  be  supposed  that,  by  casting  the  characters  of  the  drama, 
assigning  to  each  his  part,  to  one  the  attack,  to  another 
the  cry  of  onset ;  or  if  it  be  thought  that,  by  a  loud  and 
empty  vaunt  of  anticipated  victory,  any  laurels  are  to  be 
won  here ;  if  it  be  imagined,  especially,  that  any  or  all 

35  these  things  will  shake  any  purpose  of  mine,  I  can  tell 


Reply  to  Ilayne.  191 

the  honorable  member,  once  for  all,  that  he  is  greatly 
mistaken,  and  that  he  is  dealing  with  one  of  whose  tem- 
l)er  and  character  he  has  yet  much  to  learn.  Sir,  I  shall 
not  allow  myself  on  this  occasion,  I  hope  on  no  occasion, 
to  bo  betrayed  into  any  loss  of  temper ;  but  if  provoked,  5 
as  I  trust  I  never  shall  be,  into  crimination  and  recrimi- 
nation, the  honorable  member  may  perhaps  find  that  in 
that  contest  there  will  be  blows  to  take  as  well  as  blows 
to  give ;  that  others  can  state  comparisons  as  significant, 
at  least,  as  his  own,  and  that  his  impunity  may  possibly  lo 
demand  of  him  whatever  powers  of  taunt  and  sarcasm 
he  may  possess.  I  commend  him  to  a  prudent  husbandry 
of  his  resources.  .  .  . 

In  the  course  of  my  observations  the  other  day,  Mr. 
President,  I  spoke  of  the  Ordinance  of  1787,  which  pro- 16 
hibits  slavery,  in  all  future  times,  north-west  of  the  Ohio, 
as  a  measure  of  great  wisdom  and  foresight,  and  one 
which  had  been  attended  with  highly  beneficial  and  per- 
manent consequences.  I  supposed  that,  on  this  point, 
no  two  gentlemen  in  the  Senate  could  entertain  difi:erent  20 
opinions.  But  the  simple  expression  of  this  sentiment 
has  led  the  gentleman,  not  only  into  a  labored  defence 
of  slavery  in  the  abstract,  and  on  principle,  but  also  into 
a  warm  accusation  against  me,  as  having  attacked  the 
system  of  domestic  slavery  now  existing  in  the  Southern  25 
States.  For  all  this  there  was  not  the  slightest  founda- 
tion in  anything  said  or  intimated  by  me.  I  did  not 
utter  a  single  word  which  any  ingenuity  could  torture 
into  an  attack  on  the  slavery  of  the  South.  I  said  only 
that  it  was  highly  wise  and  useful,  in  legislating  for  the  ab 
North-western  country,  while  it  was  yet  a  wilderness,  to 
prohibit  the  introduction  of  slaves ;  and  I  added  that  I 
presumed  there  was  no  reflecting  and  intelligent  person 
in  the  neighboring  state  of  Kentucky,  who  would  doubt 
that,  if  th('  same  prohibition  had  been  extended  at  the  sa 


192  Webster, 

same  early  period  over  that  Commonwealth,  her  strength 
and  population  would,  at  this  day,  have  been  far  greater 
than  they  are.  If  these  opinions  be  thought  doubtful, 
they  are,  nevertheless,  I  trust,  neither  extraordinary  nor 

5  disresi)ectful.  They  attack  nobody,  and  menace  nobody. 
And  yet.  Sir,  the  gentleman's  optics  have  discovered, 
even  in  the  mere  expression  of  this  sentiment,  what  he 
calls  the  very  spirit  of  the  Missouri  question !  He  rep- 
resents me  as  making  an  onset  on  the  whole  South,  and 

10  manifesting  a  spirit  which  would  interfere  with,  and  dis- 
turb, their  domestic  condition ! 

Sir,  this  injustice  no  otherwise  surprises  me,  than  as 
it  is  committed  here,  and  committed  without  the  slight- 
est pretence  of  ground  for  it.     I  say  it  only  surprises  me 

15  as  being  done  here ;  for  I  know  full  well  that  it  is,  and 
has  been,  the  settled  policy  of  some  persons  in  the  South 
for  years  to  represent  the  people  of  the  North  as  dis- 
]X)sed  to  interfere  with  them  in  their  own  exclusive  and 
peculiar  concerns.    This  is  a  delicate  and  sensitive  point 

20  in  Southern  feeling ;  and  of  late  years  it  has  always  been 
touched,  and  generally  with  eifect,  whenever  the  object 
has  been  to  unite  the  whole  South  against  Northern  men 
or  Northern  measures.  This  feeling,  always  carefully 
kept  alive,  and  maintained  at  too  intense  a  heat  to  admit 

25  discrimination  or  reflection,  is  a  lever  of  great  power  in 
our  political  machine.  It  moves  vast  bodies,  and  gives 
to  them  one  and  the  same  direction.  But  it  is  without 
adequate  cause,  and  the  suspicion  which  exists  is  wholly 
groundless.  There  is  not,  and  never  has  been,  a  dispo- 
se sition  in  the  North  to  interfere  with  these  interests  of 
the  South.  Such  interference  has  never  been  supposed 
to  be  within  the  power  of  government ;  nor  has  it  been 
in  any  way  attempted.  The  slavery  of  the  South  has 
always  been  regarded  as  a  matter  of  domestic  iwlicy, 

35  left  with  the  States  themselves,  and  with  which  the  fed- 


Reply  to  Hayne.  193 

eral  government  had  nothing  to  do.  Certainly,  Sir,  I  am, 
and  ever  have  been,  of  that  opinion.  The  gentleman, 
indeed,  argues  that  slavery  in  the  abstract  is  no  evil. 
Most  assuredly,  I  need  not  say,  I  differ  with  him  alto- 
gether and  most  widely,  on  that  ix)int.  I  regard  domestic  6 
slavery  as  one  of  the  greatest  evils,  both  moral  and  polit- 
ical. But  whether  it  be  a  malady,  and  whether  it  be 
curable,  and,  if  so,  by  what  means ;  or,  on  the  other  hand, 
whether  it  be  the  vulnus  immedlcahile  of  the  social  sys- 
tem —  I  leave  it  to  those  whose  right  and  duty  it  is  to  lo 
inquire  and  to  decide.  And  this,  I  believe.  Sir,  is,  and 
uniformly  has  been,  the  sentiment  of  the  North.  .  .  . 

[In  support  of  this  last  statement  Mr.  Webster  appeals  to  the 
history  of  attempts  made  to  enlist  tlie  first  Congress  in  the  aboli- 
tion of  slavery.  These  attempts  resulted  in  the  famous  resolutions  15 
reported  by  a  committee  composed  almost  exclusively  of  North- 
em  men,  and  adopted  by  a  House  two-thirds  of  whose  members 
were  from  the  North,  declaring  that  Congress  has  "  no  authority 
to  interfere  in  the  emancipation  of  slaves,  or  in  the  treatment  of 
them  in  any  of  the  States."]  20 

The  fears  of  the  South,  whatever  fears  they  might 
have  entertained,  were  allayed  and  quieted  by  this  early 
decision ;  and  so  remained  till  they  were  excited  afresh, 
without  cause,  but  for  collateral  and  indirect  purposes. 
When  it  became  necessary,  or  was  thought  so  by  some  25 
political  persons,  to  find  an  unvarying  ground  for  the 
exclusion  of  Northern  men  from  confidence  and  from 
lead  in  the  affairs  of  the  republic,  then,  and  not  till  then, 
the  cry  was  raised,  and  the  feeling  industriously  excited, 
that  the  mfluence  of  Northern  men  in  the  public  coimcils  30 
would  endanger  the  relation  of  master  and  slave.  For 
myself,  I  claim  no  other  merit  than  that  this  gross  and 
enormous  injustice  towards  the  whole  North  has  not 
wrnnt'lit  iin.Mj  me  to  change  my  opinions  or  my  political 


194  Webster. 

conduct.  I  hope  I  am  above  violating  my  principles, 
even  under  the  smart  of  injury  and  false  imputations. 
Unjust  suspicions  and  undeserved  reproach,  whatever 
pain  I  may  experience  from  them,  will  not  induce  me,  I 
6  tmst,  to  overstep  the  limits  of  constitutional  duty,  or  to 
encroach  on  the  rights  of  others.  The  domestic  slavery 
of  the  Southern  States  I  leave  where  I  find  it,  —  in  the 
hands  of  their  own  governments.  It  is  their  affair,  not 
mine.     Nor  do  I  complain  of  the  peculiar  effect  which 

10  the  magnitude  of  that  population  has  had  in  the  distri- 
bution of  power  under  this  federal  government.  We 
know,  Sir,  that  the  representation  of  the  States  in  the 
other  House  is  not  equal.  We  know  that  great  advan- 
tage in  that  respect  is  enjoyed  by  the   slave-holding 

16  States ;  and  we  know,  too,  that  the  intended  equivalent 
for  that  advantage,  that  is  to  say,  the  imposition  of  direct 
taxes  in  the  same  ratio,  has  become  merely  nominal,  the 
habit  of  the  government  being  almost  invariably  to  col- 
lect its  revenue  from  other  sources  and  in  other  modes. 

ao  Neveitheless,  I  do  not  complain ;  nor  would  I  counte- 
nance any  movement  to  alter  this  arrangement  of  repre- 
sentation. It  is  tlie  original  bargain,  the  compact ;  let  it 
stand;  let  the  advantage  of  it  be  fully  enjoyed.  The 
Union  itself  is  too  full  of  benefit  to  be  hazarded  in 

25  propositions  for  changing  its  original  basis.  I  go  for 
the  Constitution  as  it  is,  and  for  the  Union  as  it  is. 
But  I  am  resolved  not  to  submit  in  silence  to  accusa- 
tions either  against  myself  individually  or  against  the 
North,  wholly  unfounded  and  unjust ;  accusations  which 

30  impute  to  us  a  disposition  to  evade  the  constitutional 
compact,  and  to  extend  the  power  of  the  government 
over  the  internal  laws  and  domestic  condition  of  the 
States.  All  such  accusations,  wherever  and  whenever 
made,  all  insinuations  of  the  existence  of  any  such  pur- 

35  poses,  I  know  and  feel  to  be  groundless  and  injurious. 


Reply  to  Hayne.  195 

And  we  must  confide  in  Southern  gentlemen  themselves; 
we  must  tnist  to  those  whose  integrity  of  heart  and  mag- 
nanimity of  feeling  will  lead  them  to  a  desire  to  maintain 
and  disseminate  truth,  and  who  possess  the  means  of  its 
diffusion  with  the  Southern  public ;  we  must  leave  it  to  5 
them  to  disabuse  that  public  of  its  prejudices.  But  in 
the  mean  time,  for  my  own  part,  I  shall  continue  to  act 
justly,  whether  those  towards  whom  justice  is  exercised 
receive  it  with  candor  or  with  contumely.  .  .  . 

[Mr.  Webster  next  refutes  the  charge  of  inconsistency  between  10 
his  present  position  regarding  the  public  lands  and  that  taken 
by  him  In  1825.] 

We  approach,  at  length.  Sir,  to  a  more  important  part 
of  the  honorable  gentleman's  observations.  Since  it 
does  not  accord  with  my  views  of  justice  and  policy  to  15 
give  away  the  public  lands  altogether,  as  mere  matter  of 
gratuity,  I  am  asked  by  the  honorable  gentleman  on  what 
ground  it  is  that  I  consent  to  vote  them  away  in  partic- 
ular instances.  How,  he  inquires,  do  I  reconcile  with 
these  professed  sentiments,  my  support  of  measures  20 
appropriating  portions  of  the  lands  to  particular  roads, 
particular  canals,  particular  rivers,  and  particular  insti- 
tutions of  education  in  the  West  ?  This  leads.  Sir,  to 
the  real  and  wide  difference,  in  political  opinion,  between 
the  honorable  gentleman  and  myself.  On  my  part,  I  26 
look  ui)on  all  these  objects  as  connected  with  the  com- 
mon good,  fairly  embraced  in  its  object  and  its  terms ; 
he,  on  the  contrary,  deems  them  all,  if  good  at  all,  only 
local  good.  This  is  our  difference.  The  interrogatory 
whicli  he  proceeded  to  put  at  once  explains  this  differ-  30 
ence.  "  What  interest,"  asks  he,  "  has  South  Carolina  in 
a  canal  in  Ohio  ?  "  Sir,  this  very  question  is  full  of  sig- 
nificance. It  develops  the  gentleman's  whole  political 
system ;  and  its  answer  expounds  mine.    Here  we  differ. 


196  Webster. 

I  look  upnii  a  road  OTCr  the  Alleglianios,  a  canal  round 
tilt'  ialls  (.f   ihr    '  ■  a  canal  or  railway   iV. ^m   the 

Atlantic  to  the  \\  eslLrii  waters,  as  being  an  object  large 
and  extensive  enough  to  be  fairly  said  to  be  for  the  com- 
r,  mon  Ix'iicfit.  Tlie  gentleman  thinks  otherwix-,  and  this 
is  the  key  to  his  construction  oT  the  ])()wers  of  the  gov- 
ernment. He  may  well  ask  v  liat  interest  has  South 
Carolina  in  a  canal   in  i  >'  liis  svstcm.  it  is  iiiie, 

she  has  no  interest.     On  tn;;i    >\ -k  ni  ( Jhio  and  Carolina 

10  are  diiTerent  governments  and  ditTe!-eT,r  countries;  cou- 
ne(;tod  here,  it  is  true,  by  some  slig'  iletined  bond 

of  union,  but  in  all  main  respects  sejiaiaie  and  diverse. 
On  that  system  Candina  has  no  more  interest  in  a.  canal 
in  Ohio  than  in  Mexico.     The  gentleman,  therefore,  only 

16  follows  out  his  own  principles ;  he  does  no  more  than 
arrive  at  the  natural  conclusions  of  his  own  doctrines ; 
he  only  announces  the  true  results  of  that  erect  1  w  hi(  h 
he  has  adopted  himself,  and  would  persuade  others  to 
adopt,  when  he  thus  declares  that  South  Carolina  has  no 

20  interest  in  a  public  -work  in  Ohio. 

Sir,  we  narrow-minded  people  of  New  England  do  not 
reason  thus.  ( )ur  notion  of  things  is  cntin  ly  different. 
We  look  upon  the  States,  not  as  separated,  but  as  united. 
We  love  to  dwell  on  that  union,  and  on  the  mutual  hap- 

25  piness  which  it  has  so  much  promoted,  and  the  common 
renown  whieh  it  has  so  greatly  contributed  to  acquire. 
In  our  contemplation,  Carolina  and  Ohio  are  parts  of  the 
same  coimtry ;  States,  united  under  the  same  general 
government,  ha^dng  interests  common,  associated,  inter- 

30  mingled.  In  whatever  is  within  the  proper  sphere  of 
the  constitutional  power  of  this  government,  we  look 
upon  the  States  as  one.  We  do  not  impose  geographical 
limits  to  our  patriotic  feeling  or  regard ;  we  do  not  follow 
rivers  and  mountains  and  lines  of  latitude  to  find  boun- 

35  daries  beyond  which  }»ublic  improvements  do  not  benefit 


•     Reply  to  Hayne.  197 

us.  We  who  come  here  as  agents  and  representatives  of 
these  narrow-minded  and  selfish  men  of  New  England, 
consider  oui-selves  as  bound  to  regard  with  an  equal  eye 
the  good  of  the  whole,  in  whatever  is  within  our  powers 
of  legislation.  Sir,  if  a  railroad  or  canal,  beginning  in  6 
South  Carolina  and  ending  in  South  Carolina,  appeared 
to  me  to  be  of  national  importance  and  national  magni- 
tude, believing,  as  I  do,  that  the  power  of  goveniment 
extends  to  the  encouragement  of  works  of  that  descrip- 
tion, if  I  were  to  stand  up  here  and  ask,  Wliat  interest  lo 
has  Massachusetts  in  a  railroad  in  South  Carolina?  I 
should  not  be  willing  to  face  my  constituents.  These 
same  narrow-minded  men  would  tell  me  that  they  had 
sent  me  to  act  for  the  whole  country,  and  that  one  who 
possessed  too  little  comprehension,  either  of  intellect  or  is 
feeling,  one  who  was  not  large  enough,  both  in  mind  and 
in  heart,  to  embrace  the  whole,  was  not  fit  to  be  intrusted 
with  the  interest  of  any  part. 

Sir,  I  do  not  desire  to  enlarge  the  powers  of  the  gov- 
ernment by  unjustifiable  construction,  nor  to  exercise  20 
any  not  within  a  fair  interpretation.  But  when  it  is 
believed  that  a  power  does  exist,  then  it  is,  in  my  judg- 
ment, to  be  exercised  for  the  general  benefit  of  the  whole. 
So  far  as  respects  the  exercise  of  such  a  power,  the  States 
are  one.  It  was  the  very  object  of  the  Constitution  to  26 
create  unity  of  interests  to  the  extent  of  the  jwwers  of 
the  general  goveniment.  In  war  and  ])eace  we  are  one ; 
in  commerce,  one ;  because  the  authority  of  the  general 
government  reaches  to  war  and  peace,  and  to  the  regula- 
tion of  commerce.  I  have  never  seen  any  more  difficulty  30 
in  erecting  liglithouses  on  the  lakes,  than  on  the  ocean ; 
in  improving  the  harbors  of  inland  seas,  than  if  they 
were  within  tlie  ebb  and  flow  of  the  tide ;  or  in  removing 
ol)gtniction8  in  the  vast  streams  of  the  West,  more  than 
in  any  work  to  facilitate  commerce  on  tlie  Atlantic  coast.  3S 


198  Webster, 

If  there  be  any  power  for  one,  there  is  power  also  for  the 
other ;  and  they  are  all  and  equally  for  the  common  good 
of  the  country. 
There  are  other  objects,  apparently  more  local,  or  the 

5  benefit  of  whicli  is  less  general,  towards  which,  neverthe- 
less, I  have  concurred  with  others  to  give  aid  by  dona- 
tions of  land.  It  is  proj)osed  to  construct  a  road  in  or 
through  one  of  the  new  States  in  which  this  govern- 
ment   i)ossesses    large  quantities    of    land.     Have    the 

10  United  States  no  right,  or,  as  a  great  and  untaxed 
proprietor,  are  they  under  no  obligation,  to  contribute 
to  an  object  thus  calculated  to  promote  the  common 
good  of  all  the  proprietors,  themselves  included  ?  And 
even  with  respect  to  education,  which  is  the  extreme 

16  case,  let  the  question  be  considered.  In  the  first  place, 
as  we  have  seen,  it  was  made  matter  of  compact  with 
these  States  that  they  should  do  their  part  to  promote 
education.  In  the  next  place,  our  whole  system  of  land 
laws  proceeds  on  the  idea  that  education  is  for  the  com- 

20  mon  good ;  because  in  every  division  a  certain  portion 
is  uniformly  reserved  and  appropriated  for  the  use  of 
schools.  And,  finally,  have  not  these  new  States  singu- 
larly strong  claims  founded  on  the  ground  already  stated, 
that  the  government  is  a  great  untaxed  proprietor,  in  the 

25  ownership  of  the  soil  ?  It  is  a  consideration  of  great 
importance,  that  probably  there  is  in  no  part  of  the 
country,  or  of  the  world,  so  great  call  for  the  means 
of  education,  as  in  these  new  States ;  owing  to  the  vast 
number  of  persons  within  those  ages  in  which  education 

30  and  instruction  are  usually  received,  if  received  at  all. 
This  is  the  natural  consequence  of  recency  of  settlement 
and  rapid  increase.  The  census  of  these  States  shows 
how  gi-eat  a  proportion  of  the  whole  population  occupies 
the  classes  between  infancy  and  manhood.     These  are  the 

35  wide  fields,  and  here  is  the  deep  and  quick  soil  for  the 


Reply  to  Ilaiine.  199 

seeds  of  knowledge  and  viituf ;  and  this  is  the  favored 
season,  the  very  spring-time  for  sowing  them.  Let  them 
be  disseminated  without  stint.  Let  them  be  scattei*ed 
with  a  bountiful  hand,  broadcast.  Whatever  the  gov- 
ernment can  fairly  do  towards  these  objects,  in  my  6 
opinion,  ought  to  be  done. 

These,  Sir,  are  the  grounds,  succinctly  stated,  on  which 
my  votes  for  grants  of  lands  for  particular  objects  rest ; 
while  I  maintain  at  the  same  time,  that  it  is  all  a  com- 
mon fund,  for  the  common  benefit.  And  reasons  like  lo 
these,  I  presume,  have  influenced  the  votes  of  other  gen- 
tlemen of  New  England.  Those  who  have  a  different 
view  of  the  powers  of  the  government,  of  course,  come  to 
different  conclusions  on  these,  as  on  other  questions.  I 
observed,  when  speaking  on  this  subject  before,  that  if  15 
we  looked  to  any  measure,  whether  for  a  road,  a  canal, 
or  anything  else,  intended  for  the  improvement  of  the 
West,  it  would  be  found  that,  if  the  New  England  ayes 
were  struck  out  of  the  lists  of  votes,  the  Southern  noes 
would  always  have  rejected  the  measure.  The  truth  of  20 
this  has  not  been  denied,  and  cannot  be  denied.  In  stat- 
ing this,  I  thought  it  just  to  ascribe  it  to  the  constitu- 
tional scruples  of  the  South,  rather  than  to  any  other 
less  favorable  or  less  charitable  cause.  But  no  sooner 
liad  I  done  this,  than  the  honorable  gentleman  asks  if  25 
1  reproach  him  and  his  friends  with  their  constitutional 
scruples.  Sir,  I  reproach  nobody.  I  stated  a  fact,  and 
gave  the  most  resi)ectful  reason  for  it  that  occurred  to 
me.  The  gentleman  cannot  deny  the  fact ;  he  may,  if  he 
choose,  disclaim  the  reason.  It  is  not  long  since  I  had  00 
occasion,  in  presenting  a  petition  from  his  own  State,  to 
account  for  its  being  intrusted  to  my  hands,  by  saying 
that  the  constitutional  opinions  of  the  gentleman  and 
his  worthy  colleague  prevented  them  from  supporting  it 
Sir,  did  I  state  this  as  matter  of  reproach  ?    Far  from  it.  35 


200  Webster. 

Did  I  attempt  to  find  any  other  cause  than  an  honest  one 
for  these  scruples  ?  Sir,  I  did  not.  It  did  not  become 
me  to  doubt  or  to  insinuate  that  the  gentleman  had 
either  changed  his  sentiments,  or  that  he  had  made  up  a 
5  set  of  constitutional  opinions  accommodated  to  anv  j  ar- 
ticular combination  of  political  occurrences.  Had  i  clone 
so,  I  should  have  felt  that,  while  I  was  entitled  to  little 
credit  in  thus  questioning  other  people's  motives,  I  justi- 
fied the  whole  world  in  suspecting  my  own.     But  how 

10  has  the  gentleman  returned  this  respect  for  others'  opin- 
ions ?  His  own  candor  and  justice,  how  have  they  been 
exhibited  towards  the  motives  of  others,  while  he  has 
been  at  so  much  pains  to  maintain,  what  nobody  has 
disputed,  the  purity  of  his  own?     Why,  Sir,  he  has 

15  asked  when,  and  how,  and  w?ii/,  New  England  votes  were 
found  going  for  measures  favoi-able  to  the  West?  He 
has  demanded  to  be  informed  whether  all  this  did  not 
begin  in  1825,  and  while  the  election  of  President  was 
still  pending  ?  .  .  . 

20  [Mr.  Webster  answers  this  insinuation  by  showing  that  the 
generous  policy  of  New  England  toward  the  West  found  ex- 
pression years  before  ^he  iK)litical  exigency  referred  to  ;  and 
that  it  was  embodied  in  the  two  well-known  Acts  of  1820  and 
1821,  "  by  far  the  most  important  general  measures   respecting 

25  the  public  lauds  which  have  been  adopted  in  the  last  twenty 
years."] 

Having  recurred  to  these  two  important  measures,  in 
answer  to  the  gentleman's  inquiries,  I  must  now  beg 
permission  to  go  back  to  a  period  yet  somewhat  earlier, 
30  for  the  purpose  of  still  further  showing  how  much,  or 
rather  how  little,  reason  there  is  for  the  gentleman's 
insinuation  tliat  political  hopes  or  fears,  or  party  asso- 
ciations, were  the  grounds  of  these  New  England  votes. 
And  after  what  has  been  said,  I  hope  it  may  be  forgiven 


Reply  to  Hayne.  201 

me  if  I  allude  to  some  jwlitical  opinions  and  votes  of  my 
own,  of  very  little  public  importance  cei-tainly,  but  which, 
from  the  time  at  which  they  were  given  and  expressed, 
may  pass  for  good  witnesses  on  this  occasion. 

This  government,  Mr.  President,  from  its  origin  to  the  6 
peace  of  1815,  had  been  too  much  engrossed  with  vari- 
ous other  important  concerns  to  be   able  to  turn  its 
thoughts   inward,  and  look  to  the  development  of  its 
vast  internal  resources.     In  the  early  part  of  President 
Washington's  administration,  it  was  fully  occupied  with  lo 
completing  its  own  organization,  providing  for  the  public 
debt,  defending  the  frontiers,  and  maintaining  domestic 
peace.    Before  the  termination  of  that  administration 
the  fires  of  the  French  Revolution  blazed  forth,  as  from 
a  new-opened  volcano,  and  tlie  Avhole  breadth  of  the  15 
ocean  did  not  secure  us  from  its  effects.     The  smoke 
and  the  cinders  reached  us,  though  not  the  burning  lava. 
Difficult  and  agitating  questions,  embarrassing  to  gov- 
ernment and  dividing  public  opinion,  sprung  out  of  the 
new  state  of  our  foreign  relations,  and  were  succeeded  by  20 
others,  and  yet  again  by  others,  equally  embarrassing 
and  equally  exciting  division  and  discord,  through  the 
long  series  of  twenty  years,  till  they  finally  issued  in  the 
war  with  Ilngland.     Down  to  the  close  of  that  war  no 
distinct,  marked,  and  deliberate  attention  had  been  given,  25 
or  could  have  been  given,  to  the  internal  condition  of  the 
country,  its  capacities  of  improvement,  or  the  constitu- 
tional i)ower  of  the  government  in  regard  to  objects  con- 
nected with  such  improvement. 

The  peace,  Mr.  President,  brought  about  an  entirely  30 
new  and  a  most  interesting  state  of  tilings;  it  opened 
to  us  other  prospects  and  suggested  other  duties.  Wo 
ourselves  were  changed,  and  the  whole  wdrld  was 
changed.  The  pacification  of  Europe,  after  June, 
1815,  assumed  a  firm  and  permanent  aspect.    The  ua-85 


202  Webster. 

tions  evidently  manifested  that  they  were  disposed  for 
peace.  Some  agitation  of  the  waves  might  be  expected, 
even  after  the  storm  had  subsided,  but  the  tendency  was, 
strongly  and  rapidly,  towards  settled  repose. 

5  It  so  happened.  Sir,  that  I  was  at  that  time  a  mem- 
ber of  Congress,  and,  like  others,  naturally  turned  my 
thoughts  to  the  contemplation  of  the  recently  altered 
condition  of  the  country  and  of  the  world.  It  appeared 
plainly  enough  to  me,  as  well  as  to  wiser  and  more 

10  experienced  men,  that  the  policy  of  the  government 
would  naturally  take  a  start  in  a  new  direction;  be- 
cause new  directions  would  necessarily  be  given  to  the 
pursuits  and  occupations  of  the  people.  We  had  pushed 
our  commerce  far  and  fast,  under  the  advantage  of  a 

15  neutral  flag.  But  there  were  now  no  longer  flags,  oitlior 
neutral  or  belligerent.  The  harvest  of  neutrality  li;i«l 
been  great,  but  we  had  gathered  it  all.  With  the  peace 
of  Europe  it  was  obvious  there  would  spring  up  in  her 
circle  of  nations  a  revived  and  invigorated  spirit  of  trade, 

20  and  a  new  activity  in  all  the  business  and  objects  of 
civilized  life.  Hereafter,  our  commercial  gains  were  to 
be  earned  only  by  success  in  a  close  and  intense  competi- 
tion. Other  nations  would  produce  for  themselves,  and 
carry  for  themselves,  and  manufacture  for  themselves,  to 

25  the  full  extent  of  their  abilities.  The  crops  of  our  plains 
would  no  longer  sustain  European  armies,  nor  our  ships 
longer  supply  those  whom  war  had  rendered  unable  to 
supply  themselves.  It  was  obvious  that,  under  these 
circumstances,  the  country  would  begin  to  survey  itself, 

30  and  to  estimate  its  own  capacity  of  improvement. 

And  this  improvement  —  how  was  it  to  be  accom- 
plished, and  who  was  to  accomplish  it  ?  We  were  ten 
or  twelve  millions  of  people,  spread  over  almost  half  a 
world.     We  were  more  than  twenty  States,  some  stretch- 

35  ing  along  the  same  seaboard,  some  along  the  same  line  of 


Reply  to  Haym,  203 

inland  frontier,  and  others  on  opposite  banks  of  the  same 
vast  rivers.  Two  considerations  at  once  presented  them- 
selves with  great  force  in  looking  at  this  state  of  things. 
One  was,  that  that  great  branch  of  improvement  which 
consisted  in  furnishing  new  facilities  of  intercourse,  5 
necessarily  ran  into  different  States  in  every  leading 
instance,  and  would  benefit  the  citizens  of  all  such 
States.  No  one  State,  therefore,  in  such  cases,  would 
assume  the  wliole  expense,  nor  was  the  co-operation 
of  several  States  to  be  expected.  Take  the  instance  of  ic 
the  Delaware  breakwater.  It  will  cost  several  millions 
of  money.  Would  Pennsylvania  alone  ever  have  con- 
structed it?  Certainly  never  while  this  Union  lasts, 
because  it  is  not  for  her  sole  benefit.  Would  Pennsyl- 
vania, New  Jersey,  and  Delaware  have  united  to  accom- 15 
plish  it  at  their  joint  expense  ?  Certainly  not,  for  the 
same  reason.-  It  could  not  be  done,  therefore,  but  by 
the  general  government.  The  same  may  be  said  of  the 
large  inland  undertakings,  except  that,  in  them,  govern- 
ment, instead  of  bearing  the  whole  expense,  co-operates  20 
with  others  who  bear  a  part.  The  other  consideration  is, 
that  the  United  States  have  the  means.  They  enjoy  the 
revenues  derived  froin  commerce,  and  the  States  have  no 
abundant  and  easy  sources  of  public  income.  Tlie  cus- 
tom-houses fill  the  general  treasury,  while  the  States  25 
have  scanty  resources,  except  by  resort  to  heavy  direct 
taxes. 

Under  this  view  of  things,  I  thought  it  necessary  to 
settle,  at  least  for  myself,  some  definite  notions  with 
respect  to  the  powers  of  the  government  in  regard  to  30 
internal  afifaii-s.  It  may  not  savor  too  much  of  self-com- 
mendation to  remark  that,  with  this  object,  I  considered 
the  Constitution,  its  judicial  construction,  its  contemjx)- 
raneous  exposition,  and  the  whole  history  of  the  legisla- 
tion of  Cnv'v---  '•"■!"••  =♦  t  ;nid  I  arrived  at  the  conclusion  35 


204  Webster. 

that  government  had  power  to  accomplish  sundry  objects, 
—  or  aid  in  their  accomplishment,  —  which  are  now  com- 
monly spoken  of  as  internal  improvements.  That  conclu- 
sion, Sir,  may  have  been  right,  or  it  may  have  been  wrong. 

5  I  am  not  about  to  argue  the  grounds  of  it  at  large.  I  say 
only,  that  it  was  adopted  and  acted  on  even  so  early  as 
in  1816.  Yes,  Mr.  President,  I  made  up  my  opinion,  and 
determined  on  my  intended  course  of  ix)litical  conduct 
on  these  subjects,  in  the  Fourteenth  Congress,  in  1816. 

10  And  now,  Mr.  President,  I  have  further  to  say,  that  I 
made  up  these  opinions,  and  entered  on  this  course  of 
political  conduct  Teucro  diice.  Yes,  Sir,  I  pursued  in  all 
this  a  South  Carolina  track  on  the  doctrines  of  internal 
improvement.     South  Carolina,  as  she  was  then  repre- 

15  sented  in  the  other  House,  set  forth  in  1816,  under  a 
fresh  and  leading  breeze,  and  I  was  among  the  followers. 
But  if  my  leader  sees  new  lights,  and  turns  a  sharp 
corner,  unless  I  see  new  lights  also,  I  keep  straight  on 
in  the  same  path.     I  repeat  that  leading  gentlemen  from 

20  South  Carolina  were  first  and  foremost  in  behalf  of  the 
doctrines  of  internal  improvements,  when  those  doctrines 
came  first  to  be  considered  and  acted  upon  in  Congress. 
The  debate  on  the  bank  question,  on  the  tariff  of  1816, 
and  on  the  direct  tax,  vnW  show  who  was  who,  and  what 

25  was  what,  at  that  time.  The  tariff  of  1816  (one  of  the 
plain  cases  of  oppression  and  usurpation,  from  which,  if 
the  government  does  not  recede,  individual  States  may 
justly  secede  from  the  government)  is,  Sir,  in  truth,  a 
South  Carolina  tariff,  supported  by  South  Carolina  votes. 

30  But  for  those  votes,  it  could  not  have  passed  in  the  form 
in  which  it  did  pass;  whereas,  if  it  had  depended  on 
Massachusetts  votes,  it  would  have  been  lost.  Does  not 
the  honorable  gentleman  well  know  all  this  ?  There  are 
certainly  those  wlio  do  full  well  know  it  all.     I  do  not 

35  say  this  to  reproach  South  Carolina.     I  only  state  the 


Reply  to  Hayne,  205 

fact ;  iuul  I  think  it  will  appear  to  be  true,  that  among 
the  earliest  and  boldest  advocates  of  the  tariff  as  a  meas- 
ure of  protection,  and  on  the  express  ground  of  protec- 
tion, were  leading  gentlemen  of  South  Carolina  in 
Congress.  I  did  not  then,  and  cannot  now,  under- 5 
stand  their  language  in  any  other  sense.  While  this 
tariff  of  1816  was  under  discussion  in  the  House  of 
Representatives,  an  honorable  gentleman  from  Georgia, 
now  of  this  House  [Mr.  Forsyth],  moved  to  reduce  the 
proposed  duty  on  cotton.  He  failed  by  four  votes.  South  10 
Carolina  giving  three  votes  (enough  to  have  turned  the 
sciile)  against  his  motion.  The  act,  Sir,  then  passed,  and 
received  on  its  passage  the  support  of  a  majority  of  the 
Representatives  of  South  Carolina  present  and  voting. 
This  act  is  the  first  in  the  order  of  those  now  denounced  15 
as  plain  usurpations.  We  see  it  daily  in  the  list,  by  the 
side  of  those  of  1824  and  1828,  as  a  case  of  manifest 
oppression,  justifying  disunion.  I  put  it  home  to  the 
honorable  member  from  South  Carolina,  that  his  own 
State  was  not  only  "  art  and  part  "  in  this  measure,  but  20 
the  causa  causans.  Without  her  aid  this  seminal  prin- 
ciple of  mischief,  this  root  of  Upas,  could  not  have  been 
planted.  I  have  already  said,  and  it  is  true,  that  this 
act  proceeded  on  the  ground  of  protection.  It  interfered 
directly  with  existing  interests  of  great  viilue  and  amount.  25 
It  cut  up  the  Calcutta  cotton  trade  by  the  roots ;  but  it 
passed,  nevertheless,  and  it  passed  on  the  principle  of 
protecting  manufactures,  on  the  principle  against  free 
trade,  on  the  principle  opposed  to  that  which  lets  us 
alone.  SO 

Such,  Mr.  President,  were  the  opinions  of  important 
and  leading  gentlemen  from  South  Carolina  on  the  sub- 
ject of  internal  improvement,  in  1816.  I  went  out  of 
Congress  tlie  next  year,  and  returning  again  in  1823, 
thought  I  found  South  CaroUna  where  I  had  left  her.  36 


206  Webster, 

I  really  supposed  that  all  things  remained  as  they  were, 
and  that  the  South  Carolina  doctrine  of  internal  improve- 
ments would  be  defended  by  the  same  eloquent  voices 
and  the  same  strong  arms  as  formerly.     In  the  lapse  of 

6  these  six  years,  it  is  true,  political  associations  had  as- 
sumed a  new  aspect  and  new  divisions.  A  strong  \nivty 
had  arisen  in  the  South  hostile  to  the  doctrine  of  inter- 
nal improvements.  Anti-consolidation  was  the  flag  under 
which  this  party  fought;  and  its  supporters  inveighed 

10  against  internal  improvements,  much  after  the  manner 
in  which  the  honorable  gentleman  has  now  inveighed 
against  them,  as  part  and  parcel  of  the  system  of  consol- 
idation. Whether  this  jmrty  arose  in  South  Carolina 
itself,  or  in  the  neighborhood,  is  more  than  I  know.     I 

15  think  the  latter.  However  that  may  have  been,  there 
were  those  found  in  South  Carolina  ready  to  make  war 
upon  it,  and  who  did  make  intrepid  war  upon  it.  Names 
being  regarded  as  things  in  such  controversies,  they  be- 
stowed on  the  anti-improvement  gentlemen  the  apjjella- 

20  tion  of  Ratlicals.  Yes,  Sir,  the  appellation  of  Radicals, 
as  a  term  of  distinction  applicable  and  applied  to  those 
who  denied  the  liberal  doctrines  of  internal  improvement, 
originated,  according  to  the  best  of  my  recollection,  some- 
where between  North  Carolina  and  Georgia.     Well,  Sir, 

25  these  mischievous  Radicals  were  to  be  put  down,  and 
the  strong  arm  of  South  Carolina  was  stretched  out  to 
put  them  down.  About  this  time.  Sir,  I  returned  to  Con- 
gress. The  battle  with  the  Radicals  had  been  fought, 
and  our  South  Carolina  champions  of  the  doctrines  of 

30  internal  improvement  had  nobly  maintained  their  ground, 
and  were  understood  to  have  achieved  a  victory.  We 
looked  upon  them  as  conquerors.  They  had  driven  back 
the  enemy  with  discomfiture,  —  a  thing,  by  the  way, 
Sir,  which  is  not  always  performed  when  it  is  promised. 

35  A  gentleman  to  whom  I  have  already  referred  in  this 


Reply  to  Ilayne,  207 

debate  had  come  into  Congress,  during  my  absence  from 
it,  from  South  Carolina,  and  had  brought  with  him  a 
high  reputation  for  ability.  He  came  from  a  school  with 
wliich  we  had  been  acquainted,  et  noscitur  a  sociis.  I 
hold  in  my  hand,  Sir,  a  printed  sj)eech  of  this  distin-S 
guished  gentleman  [Mr.  McDuffie]  "On  Internal  Improve- 
ments," delivered  about  the  period  to  which  I  now  refer, 
and  printed  with  a  few  introductory  remarks  upon  con- 
solidation; in  which,  Sir,  I  think  he  quite  consolidated 
tlie  arguments  of  his  opponents,  the  lladicals,  if  to  crush  lo 
be  to  consolidate. 

[Mr.  Webster  quotes  passages  from  the  speech  claiming  for  the 
•'Republican"  party  of  that  time, — the  dominant  party  in  the 
South, — and  for  the  South  Carolinian  delegation  in  Congress, 
led  by  Mr.  Calhoun,  the  honor  of  originating  the  system  and  15 
policy  of  internal  improvements.] 

Such  are  the  opinions.  Sir,  which  were  maintained  by 
South  Carolina  gentlemen  in  the  House  of  Kepresenta- 
tives,  on  the  subject  of  internal  improvements,  when  I 
took  my  seat  there  as  a  member  from  Massachusetts  in  20 
1823.  But  this  is  not  all.  We  had  a  bill  before  us,  and 
passed  it  in  that  House,  entitled,  "  An  Act  to  procure  the 
necessary  surveys,  plans,  and  estimates  upon  the  subject 
of  roads  and  canals."  It  authorized  the  President  to 
cause  surveys  and  estimates  to  be  made  of  the  routes  of  25 
such  roads  and  canals  as  he  might  deem  of  national  im- 
portance in  a  commercial  or  military  \)ou\t  of  view,  or 
for  the  transi)ortation  of  the  mail,  and  appropriated 
thirty  thousand  dollars  out  of  the  treasury  to  defniy  the 
exjiense.  This  act,  thAugh  preliminary  in  its  nature,  30 
covered  the  whole  grounu.  It  took  for  granted  the  com- 
plete power  of  internal  improvement,  as  far  as  any  of 
its  advocates  had  ever  contended  for  it.  Having  jnissed 
the  other  House,  the  bill  came  up  to  the  Senate,  and  was 


208  Webster. 

here  considered  and  debated  in  April,  1824.  The  honor- 
able menil^er  from  South  Carolina  was  a  member  of  the 
Senate  at  that  time.  While  the  bill  was  under  consid- 
eration here,  a  motion  was  matlo  to  add  the  following 
6  proviso :  — 

^^ Provided,  That  nothing  herein  contained  shall  be 
constmed  to  affirm  or  admit  a  power  in  Congress,  on 
their  own  authority,  to  make  roads  or  canals  within  any 
of  the  States  of  the  Union,"     The  yeas  and  nays  were 

10  tiiken  on  this  proviso,  and  the  honorable  member  voted 
in  the  negative!    The  proviso  failed. 
A  motion  was  then  made  to  add  this  proviso ;  viz.,  — 
"  Provided,  That  the  faith  of  the  United  States  is 
hereby  pledged,  that  no  money  shall  ever  be  expended 

15  for  roads  or  canals,  except  it  shall  be  among  the  several 

States,  and  in  the  same  proportion  as  direct  taxes  are 

laid  and  assessed  by  the  provisions  of  the  Constitution." 

The  honorable  member  voted  against  this  proviso  also, 

and  it  failed.     The  bill  was  then  put  on  its  passage,  and 

20  the  honorable  member  voted  for  it,  and  it  i)assed,  and 
became  a  law. 

Now,  it  strikes  me,  Sir,  that  there  is  no  maintaining 
these  votes  but  upon  tne  power  of  internal  improvement, 
in  its  broadest  sense.     In  truth,  these  bills  for  surveys 

26  and  estimates  have  always  been  considered  as  test  ques- 
tions; they  show  who  is  for  and  who  against  internal 
improvement.  This  law  itself  went  the  Avhole  length, 
and  assumed  the  full  and  complete  power.  The  gentle- 
man's votes  sustained  that  power,  in  every  form  in  which 

30  the  various  propositions  to  amend  presented  it.  He  went 
for  the  entire  and  unrestrained  authority,  without  con- 
sulting the  States,  and  without  agreeing  to  any  propor- 
tionate distribution.  And  now  suffer  me  to  remind  you, 
Mr.  President,  that  it  is  this  very  same  power,  thus  sanc- 

35  tioned  in  every  form  by  the  gentleman's  own  opinion. 


Reply  to  Hayne.  209 

that  is  so  plain  and  manifest  a  usurpation  that  the  State 
of  South  Carolina  is  supix)se(i  to  be  justified  in  refusing 
submission  to  any  laws  canying  the  power  into  effect. 
Tmly,  Sir,  is  not  this  a  little  too  hard?  May  we  not. 
crave  some  mercy,  under  favor  and  protection  of  the  gen-  6 
tleman's  own  authority?  Admitting  that  a  road,  or  a 
canal,  must  be  written  down  flat  usurpation  as  was  ever 
committed,  may  we  find  no  mitigation  in  our  respect  for 
his  place  and  his  vote,  as  one  that  knows  the  law  ? 

The  tariff,  which  South  Carolina  had  an  efficient  hand  10 
in  estiiblishing  in  1816,  and  this  asserted  power  of  inter- 
nal improvement,  advanced  by  her  in  the  same  year,  and, 
as  we  have  seen,  approved  and  sanctioned  by  her  repre- 
sentatives in  1824  —  these  two  measures  are  the  great 
grounds  on  whicli  she  is  now  thought  to  be  justified  in  15 
breaking  up  the  Union,  if  she  sees  fit  to  break  it  up ! 

I  may  now  safely  say,  I  think,  that  we  have  had  the 
authority  of  leading  and  distinguished  gentlemen  from 
South  Carolina  in  support  of  the  doctrine  of  internal 
improvement.  I  repeat  that,  up  to  1824,  Ij  for  one,  fol-  20 
lowed  South  Carolina ;  but  when  that  star,  in  its  ascen- 
sion, veered  off  in  an  unexpected  direction,  I  relied  on 
its  light  no  longer. 

[Here  the  Vice-Preaident  said,  '*  Does  the  chair  understand 
the  gentleman  from  Massachusetts  to  say  tliat  the  person  now  25 
occupying  the  chair  of  the  Senate  has   changed  his  opinions 
on  the  subject  of  Internal  improvements  ? ''] 

From  nothing  ever  s4id  to  me.  Sir,  have  I  had  reason 
to  know  of  any  change  in  the  opinions  of  the  person  fill- 
ing the  chair  of  the  Senate.  If  such  change  has  taken  so 
place,  I  regret  it.  I  speak  generally  of  the  State  of  South 
Carolina.  Individuals  we  know  there  are  who  hold 
opinions  favorable  to  the  j)ower.  An  application  for  its 
exercise,  in  behalf  of  a  public  work  in  South  Carolina 


210  Webster, 

itself,  is  now  pending,  I  believe,  in  the  other  House, 
presented  by  members  from  tliat  State. 

I  have  thus.  Sir,  perhaps  not  without  some  tediousness 
.of  detail,  shown,  if  I  am  in  error  on  the  subject  of  inter- 

5  nal  improvement,  how,  and  in  what  company,  I  fell  into 
that  error.  If  I  am  wrong,  it  is  apparent  who  misled 
me. 

I  go  to  other  remarks  of  the  honorable  member ;  and  I 
have  to  complain  of  an  entire  misapprehension  of  what 

10  I  said  on  the  subject  of  the  national  debt,  though  I  can 
hardly  perceive  how  any  one  could  misunderstand  me. 
What  I  said  was,  not  that  I  wished  to  put  off  the  pay- 
ment of  the  debt,  but,  on  the  contrary,  that  I  had  always 
voted  for  every  measure  for  its  reduction  as  uniformly 

15  as  the  gentleman  himself.  He  seems  to  claim  the  ex- 
clusive merit  of  a  disposition  to  reduce  the  public  charge. 
I  do  not  allow  it  to  him.  As  a  debt,  I  was,  I  am,  for 
paying  it,  because  it  is  a  charge  on  our  finances  and 
on  the  industry  of  the  country.     But  I  observed  that  I 

20  thought  I  perceived  a  morbid  fervor  on  that  subject — 
an  excessive  anxiety  to  i>ay  off  the  debt,  not  so  much 
because  it  is  a  debt  simply,  as  because,  while  it  lasts,  it 
furnishes  one  objection  to  disunion.  It  is,  while  it  con- 
tinues, a  tie  of  common  interest.     I  did  not  impute  such 

25  motives  to  the  honorable  member  himself,  but  that  there 
is  such  a  feeling  in  existence  I  have  not  a  particle  of 
doubt.  The  most  I  said  was,  that  if  one  effect  of  the 
debt  was  to  strengthen  our  Union,  that  effect  itself  was 
not  regretted  by  me,  however  much  others  might  regret 

30  it.  The  gentleman  has  not  seen  how  to  reply  to  this 
otherwise  than  by  supposing  me  to  have  advanced  the 
doctrine  that  a  national  debt  is  a  national  blessing. 
Others,  I  must  hope,  will  find  much  less  difficulty  in 
understanding  me.     I  distinctly  and  pointedly  cautioned 

35  the  honorable  member  not  to  understand  me  as  express- 


Reply  to  Ilayne,  211 

ing  an  opinion  favorable  to  the  continuance  of  the  debt. 
I  repeated  this  caution,  and  repeated  it  more  than  once ; 
but  it  was  thrown  away. 

On  yet  another  point  I  was  still  more  unaccountably 
misunderstood.     The  gentleman  had  harangued  against  6 
"  consolidation."     I  told  him  in  reply  that  there  was 
one  kind  of  consolidation  to  which  I  was  attached,  and 
that  was  the  consolidation  of  our  Union ;  and  that  this 
was  precisely  that  consolidation  to  which  I  feared  othei-s 
were  not  attached,  and  that  such  consolidation  was  the  lo 
very  end  of  the  Constitution,  the  leading  object,  as  they 
had  informed  us  themselves,  which  its  framers  had  kept 
in  view.     I  turned  to  their  communication,  and  read  their 
very  words,  "  the  consolidation  of  the  Union,"  and  ex- 
pressed my  devotion  to  this  sort  of  consolidation.     I  said  15 
in  terms  that  I  wished  not,  in  the  slightest  degree,  to 
augment  the  powers  of  this  government;  that  my  object 
was  to  preserve,  not  to  enlarge ;  and  that  by  consolidat- 
ing the  Union  I  understood  no  more  than  the  strength- 
ening of  the  Union,  and  perpetuating  it.     Having  been  20 
thus  explicit,  having  thus  read  from  the  printed  book 
the  precise  words  which  I  adopted  as  expressing  my  own 
sentiments,  it  passes  comprehension  how  any  man  could 
understand  me  as  contending  for  an  extension  of  the 
powers  of  the  government,  or  for  consolidation  in  that  25 
odious  sense,  in  which  it  means  an  accumulation  in  the 
federal  government  of  the  powers  properly  belonging  to 
the  States. 

I  repeat,  Sir,  that,  in  adopting  the  sentiment  of  the 
framers  of  the  Constitution,  I  read  their  language  audi-  30 
bly,  and  word  for  word ;  and  I  pointed  out  the  distinc- 
tion, just  as  fully  as  I  have  now  done,  between  the 
consolidation  of  the  Union  and  that  other  obnoxious  con- 
solidation which  I  disclaimed.  And  yet  the  honorable 
mpmbcr  misunderstood   nio.     The  gentleman   had   said  A 


212  Weh%ter. 

that  he  wished  for  no  fixed  revenue,  —  not  a  shilling. 
If  by  a  word  he  could  convert  the  Capitol  into  gold,  he 
would  not  do  it.  Why  all  this  fear  of  revenue  ?  AVhy, 
Sir,  because,  as  the  gentleman  told  us,  it  tends  to  consol- 
5  idation.  Now,  this  can  mean  neither  more  nor  less  than 
that  a  common  revenue  is  a  common  interest,  and  that 
all  common  interests  tend  to  preserve  the  union  of  the 
States.  I  confess  I  like  that  tendency  ;  if  the  gentleman 
dislikes  it,  he  is  right  in  deprecating  a  shilling  of  fixed 

10  revenue.     So  much,  Sir,  for  consolidation.  .  .  . 

Professing  to  be  provoked  by  what  he  chose  to  con- 
sider a  charge  made  by  me  against  South  Carolina,  the 
honorable  member,  Mr.  President,  has  taken  up  a  new 
cnisade  against  New  England.     Leaving  altogether  the 

15  subject  of  the  public  lands,  in  which  his  success,  perhaps, 
had  been  neither  distinguished  nor  satisfactory,  and  let- 
ting go,  also,  of  the  topic  of  the  tariff,  he  sallied  forth  in 
a  general  assault  on  the  opinions,  politics,  and  parties  of 
New  England,  as  they  have  been  exhibited  in  the  last 

20  thirty  yeai-s.  This  is  natural.  The  "  narrow  jKjlicy " 
of  the  public  lands  had  proved  a  legal  settlement  in 
South  Carolina,  and  was  not  to  be  removed.  The  "  ac- 
cursed policy  "  of  the  tariff,  also,  had  established  the 
fact  of  its  birth  and  parentage  in  the  same  State.     No 

25  wonder,  therefore,  the  gentleman  wished  to  carry  the 
war,  as  he  expressed  it,  into  the  enemy's  country.  Pru- 
dently willing  to  quit  these  subjects,  he  was,  doubtless, 
desirous  of  fastening  on  others,  which  could  not  be  trans- 
ferred south  of  Mason  and  Dixon's  line.     The  politics  of 

30  New  England  became  his  theme ;  and  it  was  in  this  part 
of  his  speech,  I  think,  that  he  menaced  me  with  such 
sore  discomfiture.  Discomfiture  !  Why,  Sir,  when  he 
attacks  anything  which  I  maintain,  and  overthrows  it, 
when  he  turns  the  right  or  left  of  any  position  which  I 

35  take  up,  when  he  drives  me  from  any  ground  I  choose  to 


Reply  to  Hayne,  213 

occupy,  he  may  then  talk  of  discomfiture,  but  not  till 
that  distant  day.  What  has  he  done?  Has  he  main- 
tained his  own  charges  ?  Has  he  proved  what  he  alleged  ? 
Has  he  sustained  himself  in  his  attack  on  the  govern- 
ment, and  on  the  history  of  the  North,  in  the  matter  of  6 
the  public  lauds  ?  Has  he  disproved  a  fact,  refuted  a 
proposition,  weakened  an  argument,  maintained  by  me  ? 
Has  he  come  within  beat  of  drum  of  any  position  of 
mine  ?  Oh,  no ;  but  he  has  "  carried  the  war  into  the 
enemy's  country ! "  Carried  the  war  into  the  enemy's  10 
country !  Yes,  Sir,  and  what  sort  of  a  war  has  he  made 
of  it  ?  AVhy,  Sir,  he  has  stretched  a  drag-net  over  the 
whole  surface  of  perished  pamphlets,  indiscreet  sermons, 
frothy  paragraphs,  and  fuming  popular  addresses ;  over 
wliatever  the  pulpit  in  its  moments  of  alarm,  the  press  15 
in  its  heats,  and  parties  in  their  extravagance,  have  sev- 
erally thrown  off  in  times  of  general  excitement  and  vio- 
lence. He  has  thus  swept  together  a  mass  of  such  things 
as,  but  that  they  are  now  old  and  cold,  the  public  health 
would  have  required  him  rather  to  leave  in  their  state  20 
of  dispersion.  For  a  good  long  hour  or  two  we  had  the 
unbroken  pleasure  of  listening  to  the  honorable  member, 
while  he  recited  with  his  usual  grace  and  spirit,  and  with 
evident  high  gusto,  speeches,  pamphlets,  addresses,  and 
all  the  et  ceteras  of  the  political  press,  such  as  warm  25 
heads  produce  in  warm  times ;  and  such  as  it  would  be 
"  discomfiture "  indeed  for  any  one,  whose  taste  did  not 
delight  in  that  sort  of  reading,  to  be  obliged  to  ixiruse. 
This  is  his  war.  This  it  is  to  carry  war  into  the  enemy's 
country.  It  is  in  an  invasion  of  this  sort  that  he  flatters  30 
himself  ^vith  the  expectation  of  gaining  laurels  fit  to 
adorn  a  Senator's  brow ! 

Mr.  President,  I  shall  not,  it  will  not,  I  trust,  bo 
expected  that  I  should,  either  now  or  at  any  time,  sepa- 
rate this  farrago  into  parts,  and  answer  and  examine  its  3S 


214  Webster. 

components.  I  shall  barely  bestow  upon  it  all  a  general 
remark  or  two.  In  the  run  of  forty  years,  Sir,  under  this 
Constitution,  we  have  exjxirieneed  sundry  successive  vio- 
lent party  contests.  Party  arose,  indeed,  with  the  Con- 
5  stitution  itself,  and,  in  some  form  or  other,  has  attended 
it  through  the  greater  part  of  its  history.  Whether  any 
other  constitution  than  the  old  Articles  of  Confederation 
was  desirable,  was  itself  a  question  on  which  parties 
divided;    if    a    new   Constitution   were    framed,    what 

10  powers  should  be  given  to  it  was  another  question ; 
and,  when  it  had  been  formed,  what  was,  in  fact,  the 
just  extent  of  the  powers  actually  conferred  was  a  tliird. 
Parties,  as  we  know,  existed  under  the  first  administra- 
tion, as  distinctly  marked  as  those  which  have  mani- 

15  fested  themselves  at  any  subsequent  i)eriod.  The 
contest  immediately  preceding  the  political  change  in 
1801,  and  that,  again,  which  existed  at  the  commence- 
ment of  the  late  war,  are  other  instances  of  party  ex- 
citement, of  something  more  than  usual  strength  and 

20  intensity.  In  all  these  conflicts  there  was,  no  doubt, 
much  of  violence  on  both  and  all  sides.  It  would  be 
impossible,  if  one  had  a  fancy  for  such  employment,  to 
adjust  the  relative  quantum  of  violence  between  these 
contending  parties.     There  was  enough  in  each,  as  must 

25  always  be  expected  in  popular  governments.  With  a 
great  deal  of  proper  and  decorous  discussion  there  was 
mingled  a  great  deal,  also,  of  declamation,  virulence, 
crimination,  and  abuse.  In  regard  to  any  party,  proba- 
bly, at  one  of  the  leading  epochs  in  the  history  of  parties, 

30  enough  may  be  found  to  make  out  another  inflamed  exhi- 
bition, not  unlike  tliat  with  which  the  honorable  member 
has  edified  us.  For  myself,  Sir,  I  shall  not  rake  among 
the  rubbish  of  by-gone  times  to  see  what  I  can  find,  or 
whether  I  cannot  find  something  by  which  I  can  fix  a 

35  blot  on  the  escutcheon  of  any  State,  any  party,  or  any 


Reply  to  Hayne.  215 

part  of  the  country.  General  Washington's  administra- 
tion was  steadily  and  zealously  maintained,  as  we  all 
know,  by  New  England.  It  was  violently  opposed  else- 
where. We  know  in  what  quarter  he  had  the  most 
earnest,  constant,  and  persevering  support,  in  all  his  6 
great  and  leading  measures.  We  know  where  his  pri- 
vate and  personal  character  was  held  in  the  highest 
degree  of  attachment  and  veneration ;  and  we  know, 
too,  where  his  measures  were  opposed,  his  services 
slighted,  and  his  character  vilified.  We  know,  or  we  ic 
might  know,  if  we  turned  to  the  journals,  who  expressed 
respect,  gratitude,  and  regret  when  he  retired  from  the 
chief  magistracy,  and  who  refused  to  express  either 
respect,  gratitude,  or  regret.  I  shall  not  open  those 
journals.  Publications  more  abusive  or  scurrilous  never  15 
saw  the  light  than  were  sent  forth  against  Wjushington 
and  all  his  leading  measures  from  presses  south  of  New 
England.  But  I  shall  not  look  them  up.  I  employ  no 
scavengers ;  no  one  is  in  attendance  on  me,  tendering  such 
means  of  retaliation ;  and,  if  there  were,  with  an  ass's  20 
load  of  them,  with  a  bulk  as  huge  as  that  which  the 
gentleman  himself  has  produced,  I  would  not  touch  one 
of  them.  I  see  enough  of  the  violence  of  our  own  times 
to  be  no  way  anxious  to  rescue  from  forgetfulness  the 
extravagances  of  times  past.  25 

;•  Besides,  what  is  all  this  to  the  present  purpose  ?  It 
has  nothing  to  do  with  the  public  lands,  in  regard  to 
which  the  attack  was  begim ;  and  it  has  notliing  to  do 
with  those  sentiments  and  opinions  whicli  I  have  thought 
tend  to  disunion,  and  all  of  which  the  lionorable  mem-  30 
ber  seems  to  have  adopted  himself,  and  undertaken  to 
defend.  New  England  has,  at  times,  so  argues  the 
gentleman,  held  opinions  as  dangerous  as  those  which 
he  now  holds.  Suppose  this  were  so;  why  sliould  he 
therefore  abuse  New  England  ?     I  f  ho  finds   himself  36 


\ 


216  Webster. 

countenanced  by  acts  of  hers,  how  is  it  tliat,  while  he 
relies  on  these  acts,  he  covers,  or  seeks  to  cover,  their 
authors  with  reproach  ?  But,  Sir,  if,  in  the  course  of 
forty  years,  there  have  been  luidue  enervescences  of 

5  party  in  New  England,  has  the  same  thing  happened 
nowhere  else  ?  ...  If  the  gentleman  wishes  to  increase 
his  stores  of  party  abuse  and  frothy  violence,  if  he  has 
a  determined  proclivity  to  such  pursuits,  there  are 
treasures  of  that  sort  south  of  the  Potomac,  much  to 

10  his  taste,  yet  untouched.  .  .  .  The  gentleman's  purvey- 
ors have  only  catered  for  him  among  the  productions 
of  one  side.  I  certainly  shall  not  supply  the  deficiency 
by  furnishing  samples  of  the  other.  I  leave  to  him, 
and  to  them,  the  whole  concern.     It  is  enough  for  me 

15  to  say,  that  if,  in  any  part  of  this  their  grateful  occu- 
pation, if,  in  all  their  researches,  they  find  anything 
in  the  history  of  Massachusetts  or  New  England,  or 
in  the  proceedings  of  any  legislative  or  other  public 
body,  disloyal  to  the  Union,  speaking  slightly  of  its 

20  value,  proposing  to  break  it  up,  or  recommending  non- 
intercourse  with  neighboring  States,  on  account  of  differ- 
ence of  political  opinion,  then.  Sir,  I  give  them  all 
up  to  the  honorable  gentleman's  unrestrained  rebuke; 
expecting,  however,  that  he  will  extend  his  buffetings  in 

25  like  manner  to  all  similar  proceedings,  wherever  else 
found.  .  .  . 

Mr.  President,  in  carrying  his  warfare,  such  as  it  is, 
into  New  England,  the  honorable  gentleman  all  along 
professes  to  be  acting  on  the  defensive.     He  chooses  to 

30  consider  me  as  having  assailed  South  Carolina,  and  in- 
sists that  he  comes  forth  only  as  her  champion,  and  in 
her  defence.  Sir,  I  do  not  admit  that  I  made  any  attack 
whatever  on  South  Carolina.  Nothing  like  it.  The  hon- 
orable member,  in  his  first  speech,  expressed  opinions,  in 

35  regard  to  revenue  and  some  other  topics,  which  I  heard 


Eeply  to  Hayne.  217 

both  with  pain  and  with  surprise.  I  told  the  gentleman 
I  was  aware  that  such  sentiments  were  entertained  out 
of  the  government,  but  had  not  expected  to  find  them 
advanced  in  it ;  that  I  knew  there  were  persons  in  the 
South  who  speak  of  our  Union  with  indifference  or  doubt,  5 
taking  pains  to  magnify  its  evils,  and  to  say  nothing  of 
its  benefits ;  that  the  honorable  member  himself,  I  was 
sure,  could  never  be  one  of  these ;  and  I  regretted  the 
expression  of  such  opinions  as  he  had  avowed,  because  I 
thought  their  obvious  tendency  was  to  encourage  feelings  10 
of  disrespect  to  the  Union,  and  to  impair  its  strength. 
This,  Sir,  is  the  sum  and  substance  of  all  I  said  on  the 
subject.  And  this  constitutes  the  attack,  which  called 
on  the  chivalry  of  the  gentleman,  in  his  own  opinion,  to 
harry  us.  with  such  a  foray  among  the  party  pamphlets  15 
and  party  proceedings  of  Massachusetts !  If  he  means 
that  I  spoke  with  dissatisfaction  or  disrespect  of  the 
ebullitions  of  individuals  in  South  Carolina,  it  is  true. 
But  if  he  means  that  I  had  assailed  the  character  of  the 
State,  her  honor,  or  patriotism,  that  I  reflected  on  her  20 
history  or  her  conduct,  he  has  not  the  slightest  ground 
for  any  such  assumption.  I  did  not  even  refer,  1  think, 
in  my  observations,  to  any  collection  of  individuals.  I 
said  nothing  of  the  recent  conventions.  I  spoke  in  the 
most  guarded  and  eareful  manner,  and  only  expressed  25 
my  regret  for  the  publication  of  opinions  which  I  pre- 
sumed the  honorable  member  disapproved  as  much  as 
myself.  In  this,  it  seems,  I  was  mistaken.  I  do  not 
remember  that  the  gentleman  has  disclaimed  any  senti- 
ment, or  any  opinion,  of  a  supposed  anti-union  tendency,  30 
which  on  all  or  any  of  the  recent  occasions  has  been  ex- 
pressed. The  whole  drift  of  his  speech  has  been  rather 
to  prove  tliat,  in  divers  times  and  manners,  sentiments 
Cfjually  liable  to  my  objection  have  been  avowed  in  New 
England.     And  one  would  sumdosc!   that  liis   object,  in  36 


218  Webster. 

tliis  reference  to  Massachusetts,  was  to  find  a  jnecedent 
to  justify  proceedings  in  the  South,  \ven»  it  not  lor  tlie 
reproach  and  continm.lv  with  which  he  hibors,  all  along, 
to  load  these  lii  <hosen  precedents.     By  way  of 

sdefendinL:  South  CaKiina  fntm  what  he  chooses  to  think 
an  attack  on  her,  he  lirst  quotes  the  example  of  Massa- 
chusetts, and  then  denounces  that  example  in  good  set 
terms.  'I'his  twofold  ]>ur])()se,  not  very  consistent,  one 
would  think,  with  itself,  was  exhibited  more  than  once 

10  in  the  coui-^e  of  Ids  siiecch.  He  referred,  for  instance, 
to  the  Hartford  Convention.  Did  he  do  this  for  author- 
ity, or  for  a  to])ic  of  reproacli  ?  Ap])arently  for  both ; 
for  he  told  us  that  he  shouhl  lind  no  fault  with  the  mere 
fact  of  holding  such  a  convention,  and  considerini,^  and 

16  discussing  such  questions  as  he  supposes  were  then  and 
there  discussed;  but  what  rendered  it  obnoxious  was  its 
being  held  at  the  tim(\  and  under  the  circumstances  of 
the  country  then  existing,'.  We  were  in  a  war,  he  said, 
and  the  country  neeiLd  all  our  aid  ;  the  hand  of  govern- 

20  nient  re(iuired  to  be  strengtiiened,  not  weakened;  and 
patriotism  should  have  postponed  such  proceedings  to 
another  day.  The  thing  itself,  then,  is  a  precedent;  the 
time  and  manner  of  it  only,  a  subject  of  censure.  Now, 
Sir,  I  go  much  further  on  this  point  than  the  honorable 

25  member.  Supposing,  as  the  gentleman  seems  to  do,  that 
the  Hai-tford  Convention  assembled  for  any  such  purpose 
as  breaking  up  the  Union,  because  they  thought  uncon- 
stitutional laws  had  been  passed,  or  to  consult  on  that 
subject,  or  to  calculate  the  value  of  the  Union  ;  supposing 

30  this  to  be  their  purpose,  or  any  part  of  it,  then,  I  say, 
the  meeting  itself  was  disloyal,  and  was  obnoxious  to 
censure,  whether  held  in  time  of  peace  or  time  of  war, 
or  under  whatever  circumstances.  The  material  question 
is  the  ohjcrf.     Is  dissolution  the  object  ?     If  it  be,  ex- 

35  ternal  circimistances  may  make  it  a  more  or  less  aggra- 


Reply  to  Hayne.  'Jl!' 

\  ated  case,  but  cannot  affect  the  principle.  I  do  not  hold, 
t  herefore.  Sir,  that  the  Hartford  Convention  was  pardon- 
able, even  to  the  extent  of  the  gentleman's  admission,  if 
its  objects  were  really  such  as  have  been  imputed  to  it. 
Sir,  there  never  was  a  time,  under  any  degree  of  excite-  5 
ment,  in  which  the  Hartford  Convention,  or  any  other 

'  )nvention,  could  have  maintained  itself  one  moment  in 
N  t»w  England,  if  assembled  for  any  such  purpose  as  the 

•  ntleman  says  would  have  been  an  allowable  purpose. 
To  hold  conventions  to  decide  constitutional- law !  to  try  10 
the  binding  validity  of  statutes,  by  votes  in  a  convention  I 
Sir,  the  Hartford  Convention,  I  presume,  would  not  desire 
that  the  honorable  gentleman  should  be  their  defender  or 
advocate,  if  he  puts  their  case  upon  such  untenable  and 
extravagant  grounds.  15 

Then,  Sir,  the  gentleman  has  no  fault  to  find  with 
these  recently  promulgated  South  Carolina  opinions. 
And  certainly  he  need  have  none;  for  his  own  senti- 
ments as  now  advanced,  and  advanced  on  reflection, 
as  far  as  I  have  been  able  to  comprehend  them,  go  the  20 
full  length  of  all  these  opinions.  I  propose.  Sir,  to  say 
something  on  these,  and  to  consider  how  far  they  are 
just  and  constitutional.  Before  doing  that,  however, 
U't  me  observe  that  the  eulogium  pronounced  by  the 
lionorable  gentleman  on  the  character  of  the  State  of  35 
South  Carolina,  for  Revolutionary  and  other  merits, 
meets  my  hearty  concurrence.  I  shall  not  acknowledge 
tliat  the  honorable  member  goes  before  me  in  regard  for 
whatever  of  distinguished  talent,  or  distinguished  char- 
acter, South  Carolina  has  produced.  I  claim  part  of  the  30 
honor,  I  partake  in  the  pride,  of  her  great  names.  I 
( laim  them  for  countrymen,  one  and  all.  The  Laurenses, 
the  Kutledges,  the  Pinckneys,  the  Sumpters,  the  Marions, 
Americans  all,  whose  fame  is  no  more  to  be  hemmed  in 
by  State  lines  than  their  talents  and  patriotism  were  35 


220  Webster. 

capable  of  being  circuiubciibt'd  witliiii  tlip  samp  narrow 
limits.  In  their  day  and  general  Imi  tlnv  >t'iv('(l  and 
honored  the  country,  and  the  whole  count  rv  ;  and  tluir 
renown  is  of  the  treasures  of  the  whole  tuuniiv.     Iliin 

6  whose  honored  name  the  gentleman  himself  lx\irs,  —  does 
he  esteem  me  less  cai>:d>l<'  (»f  gratitude  for  his  i)atiiutism, 
or  sym])atliy  for  his  sulfeiings,  than  if  his  eves  had  first 
op^^iit'il  upon  ilic  liL,dit  of  Massac]iii>t  ■  itli 

Carolina"/     JSir,  does  he  suppose  it  m  liis  power  i  .  .  x- 

10  hibit  a  Carolina  name  so  bright  as  to  produce  enw  in 
my  bosom  ?  No,  Sir  :  in<r(  ased  gratification  and  delight 
rather.  I  thank  God  that,  if  I  am  gifted  with  little  of 
the  spirit  which  is  able  to  raise  mortals  to  the  skies, 
I  have  yet  none,  as  Itru>t.  of  iliat   dtlicr  spirit,  which 

If)  would  dra.i;  angels  down.  When  i  shall  be  found.  Sir, 
in  my  })hu'e  here  in  the  Senate,  or  elsewhere,  to  sn*  <  r  at 
]»uhli('  merit,  because  it  happens  to  sj»iin;4  up  hi'voud  the 
little  limits  of  my  own  State  or  neighborhood ;  when  1 
refuse,  for  any  such  cause,  or  for  any  cause,  the  homage 

20  due  to  American  talent,  to  elevated  patriotism,  to  sincere 
devotion  to  liberty  and  the  country  ;  or,  if  I  see  an 
uncommon  endowment  of  Heaven,  if  I  see  extraordinary 
capacity  and  virtue,  in  any  son  of  the  South,  and  if, 
moved  by  local  prejudice,  or  gangrened  by  State  jealousy, 

25  I  get  up  here  to  abate  the  tithe  of  a  hair  from  his  just 
character  and  just  fame,  may  my  tongue  cleave  to  the 
roof  of  my  mouth  ! 

Sir,  let   me   recur  to   pleasing  recollections;   let   me 
indulge  in  refreshing  remembrance  of  the  past ;  —  let  me 

30  remind  you  that  in  early  times  no  States  cherished 
greater  harmony,  both  of  principle  and  feeling,  than 
Massachusetts  and  South  Carolina.  Would  to  God  that 
harmony  might  again  return !  Shoulder  to  shoulder 
they  went  through  the  Revolution,  hand  in  hand  they 

35  stood  round  the  administration  of  Washington,  and  felt 


Reply  to  Hayne.  221 

his  own  great  arm  lean  on  them  for  support.  Unkind 
teeling,  if  it  exist,  alienation  and  distrust  are  the  growth, 
unnatural  to  such  soils,  of  false  principles  since  sown. 
They  are  weeds,  the  seeds  of  which  that  same  great  arm 
never  scattered.  5 

Mr.  President,  I  shall  enter  on  no  encomium  upon 
Massachusetts;  she  needs  none.  There  she  is,  behold 
lier,  and  judge  for  yourselves.  There  is  her  history; 
the  world  knows  it  by  heart.  The  past,  at  least,  is 
secure.  There  is  Boston,  and  Concord,  and  Lexington,  lo 
and  Bunker  Hill ;  and  there  they  will  remain  forever. 
The  bones  of  her  sons,  falling  in  the  great  struggle  for 
I  ndei)endence,  now  lie  mingled  with  the  soil  of  every 
State  from  New  England  to  Georgia ;  and  there  they 
will  lie  forever.  And,  Sir,  where  American  Liberty  15 
raised  its  first  voice,  and  where  its  youth  was  nurtured 
and  sustained,  there  it  still  lives  in  the  strength  of  its 
manhood  and  full  of  its  original  spirit.  If  discord  and 
disunion  shall  wound  it ;  if  party  strife  and  blind  ambi- 
tion shall  hawk  at  and  tear  it ;  if  folly  and  madness,  if  20 
uneasiness  under  salutary  and  necessary  restraint,  shall 
succeed  to  separate  it  from  that  Union  by  which  alone 
its  existence  is  made  sure ;  it  will  stand,  in  the  end,  by  the 
side  of  that  cradle  in  which  its  infancy  was  rocked ;  it 
will  stretch  forth  its  arm  with  whatever  of  vigor  it  may  25 
still  retain,  over  the  friends  who  gather  round  it ;  and  it 
will  fall  at  last,  if  fall  it  must,  amidst  the  proudest 
monuments  of  its  own  glory,  and  on  the  very  spot  of 
its  origin. 

There  yet  remains  to  be  performed,  Mr.  President,  by  30 
far  the  most  grave  and  important  duty  which  I  feel  to 
be  devolved  on  me  by  this  occasion.  It  is  to  state,  and 
to  defend,  what  I  conceive  to  be  the  true  principles  of 
the  Constitution  under  which  we  are  here  assembled.  I 
might  well  have  desired  that  so  weighty  a  task  should  85 


222  Webster, 

have  fallen  into  other  and  abler  hands.  I  could  have 
wished  that  it  should  have  been  executed  by  those  whose 
character  and  experience  give  weight  and  influence  to 
their  opinions  such  as  cannot  possibly  belong  to  mine. 

5  But,  Sir,  I  have  met  the  occasion,  not  sought  it ;  and  I 
shall  proceed  to  state  my  own  sentiments,  without  chal- 
lenging for  them  any  particular  regard,  with  studied 
plainness,  and  as  much  precision  as  possible. 

I  understand  the   honorable  gentleman  from   South 

10  Carolina  to  maintain  that  it  is  a  right  of  the  State 
legislatures  to  interfere,  whenever  in  their  judgment 
this  government  transcends  its  constitutional  limits,  and 
to  arrest  the  operation  of  its  laws. 

I  understand  him  to  maintain  this  right,  as  a  right 

15  existing  under  the  ConstUutiony  not  as  a  right  to  over- 
throw it  on  the  ground  of  extreme  necessity,  such  as 
would  justify  violent  revolution. 

I  understand  him  to  maintain  an  authority,  on  the 
part  of  the  States,  thus  to  interfere  for  the  purpose  of 

20  correcting  the  exercise  of  power  by  the  general  govern- 
ment, of  checking  it,  and  of  compelling  it  to  conform  to 
their  opinion  of  the  extent  of  its  powers. 

I  understand  him  to  maintain  that  the  ultimate  power 
of  judging  of  the  constitutional  extent  of  its  own  author- 

25  ity  is  not  lodged  exclusively  in  the  general  government, 
or  any  branch  of  it ;  but  that,  on  the  contrary,  the 
States  may  lawfully  decide  for  themselves,  and  each 
State  for  itself,  whether,  in  a  given  case,  the  act  of  the 
general  government  transcends  its  power. 

30  I  understand  him  to  insist  that,  if  the  exigency 
of  the  case,  in  the  opinion  of  any  State  government, 
require  it,  such  State  government  may,  by  its  own 
sovereign  authority,  annul  an  act  of  the  general  gov- 
ernment which  it  deems  plainly  and  palpably  unconsti- 

35  tutional. 


Reply  to  Hayne,  223 

This  is  the  sum  of  what  I  understand  from  him  to  be 
the  South  Carolina  doctrine  and  the  doctrine  which  he 
maintains.  I  propose  to  consider  it,  and  compare  it  with 
the  Constitution.  Allow  me  to  say,  as  a  preliminary 
remark,  that  I  call  this  the  South  Carolina  doctrine  only  5 
because  the  gentleman  himself  has  so  denominated  it.  I 
do  not  feel  at  liberty  to  say  that  South  Carolina,  as  a 
State,  has  ever  advanced  these  sentiments.  I  hope  she 
has  not,  and  never  may.  That  a  great  majority  of  her 
people  are  opposed  to  the  tariff  laws,  is  doubtless  true.  lO 
That  a  majority,  somewhat  less  than  that  just  men- 
tioned, conscientiously  believe  these  laws  unconstitu- 
tional, may  probably  also  be  true.  But,  that  any 
majority  holds  to  the  right  of  direct  State  interfer- 
ence at  State  discretion,  —  the  right  of  nullifying  acts  of  15 
Congress  by  acts  of  State  legislation,  —  is  more  than  I 
know,  and  what  I  shall  be  slow  to  believe. 

That  there  are  individuals  besides  the  honorable  gen- 
tleman who  do  maintain  these  opinions,  is  quite  certain. 
I  recollect  the  recent  expression  of  a  sentiment  which  20 
circumstances  attending  its  utterance  and  publication 
justify  us  in  supposing  was  not  unpremeditated,  "The 
sovereignty  of  the  State  —  never  to  be  controlled,  con- 
strued, or  decided  on,  but  by  her  own  feelings  of  honor- 
able justice."  26 

[Mr.  Hayne  here  rose  and  said  that,  for  the  purpose  of  being 
clearly  understood,  he  would  state  that  his  proposition  was  in  the 
words  of  tlie  Virginia  resolution  as  follows:  — 

**  That  this  assembly  doth  explicitly  and  peremptorily  declare, 
that  it  views  the  powers  of  the  federal  government,  as  resulting  dO 
from  the  compact  to  which  the  States  are  parties,  as  limited  by  the 
plain  sense  and  intention  of  the  instrument  constituting  that  com- 
pact, as  no  farther  valid  than  they  are  authorized  by  the  grants 
enumerated  in  that  compact ;  and  that,  in  case  of  a  deliberate, 
palpable,  and  dangerous  exercise  of  other  powers,  not  granted  by  35 
the  said  compact,  the  States  who  are  parties  thereto  haye  the 


224  Webster. 

right,  ami  arr  in  iliiiy  IkmukI,  to  ini.TjiM-,..  f.  .r  an-rst  iiiLT  tlu'  [tvo'j;- 
r<;8s  of  llu-  fvil,  Hiul  lur  inaiiiLaiuing  within  their  respective  limits 
the  authorities,  rights,  and  libert.ie8  appertaining  to  them."] 

Mr.  Webster  resumed :  — 
5  I  am  quite  aware,  Mr.  President,  of  the  existence  of 
the  resolution  \vlii(  li  the  gentleman  read,  and  has  now 
repeated,  and  that  he  rcli*  s  on  it,  as  his  aiitliority.  I 
know  the  source,  too,  from  which  it  is  uiidcistood  to  liave 
proceeded.     I  need  not  say  tliat  I  have  mucli  respect  for 

10  the  constitutional  opinions  of  Mr.  Madison ;  they  would 
weigh  greatly  with  me  always.  But,  before  the  authority 
of  his  opinion  be  vouched  for  the  gentleman's  proposi- 
tion, it  will  be  proper  to  consider  wliat  is  the  fair  inter- 
pretation of  that  resolution  to  which   Mr.   Madison  is 

15  understood  to  have  given  his  sanction.  As  the  gentle- 
man construes  it,  it  is  an  authority  for  him.  Possibly  he 
may  not  have  adopted  the  right  construction.  That  reso- 
lution declares,  that,  in  the  case  of  the  dangerous  exercise 
of  potvers   not  granted  by  the  general  gorrrvrnrvf,   thn 

20  States  may  interpose  to  arrest  the  progress  of  the  criL 
But  how  interpose,  and  what  does  this  declaration  pur- 
port ?  Does  it  mean  no  more  than  that  there  may  be 
extreme  cases,  in  which  the  people,  in  any  mode  of 
assembling,   may   resist   usurpation    and    relieve   tliem- 

25  selves  from  a  tyrannical  government  ?  No  one  will 
deny  this.  Such  resistance  is  not  only  acknowledged 
to  be  just  in  America,  but  in  England  also.  Blackstone 
admits  as  much,  in  the  theory,  and  practice,  too,  of  the 
English  constitution.     We,  Sir,  who  oppose  the  Carolina 

30  doctrine,  do  not  deny  that  the  people  may,  if  they 
choose,  throw  off  any  government,  when  it  becomes 
oppressive  and  intolerable,  and  erect  a  better  in  its 
stead.  We  all  know  that  civil  institutions  are  estab- 
lished for  the  public  benefit,  and  that  when  they  cease 


Reply  to  Hayne,  226 

to  answer  the  ends  of  their  existence  they  may  be 
changed.  But  I  do  not  understand  the  doctrine  now 
contended  for  to  be  that  which,  for  the  sake  of  dis- 
tinction, we  may  call  the  right  of  revolution,  I  under- 
stand the  gentleman  to  maintain  that,  without  revolution,  6 
without  civil  commotion,  without  rebellion,  a  remedy  for 
8upi)osed  abuse  and  transgression  of  the  powers  of  the 
general  government  lies  in  a  direct  appeal  to  the  inter- 
ference of  the  State  governments. 

[Mr.  Hayne  here  rose  and  said  :  He  did  not  contend  for  the  10 
men'  right  of  revohition,  but  for  the  right  of  constitutional  reslst- 
;inco.  What  he  maintained  was,  that,  in  case  of  a  plain,  pal- 
pable violation  of  the  Constitution  by  the  general  government, 
a  State  may  interpose;  and  that  this  interposition  is  constitu- 
tional.] 15 

Mr.  Webster  resumed :  — 

So,  Sir,  I  understood  the  gentleman,  and  am  happy  to 
find  that  I  did  not  misunderstand  him.  What  he  con- 
tends for  is,  that  it  is  constitutional  to  interrupt  the 
administration  of  the  Constitution  itself,  in  the  hands  20 
of  those  who  are  chosen  and  sworn  to  administer  it,  by 
tlie  direct  interference,  in  form  of  law,  of  the  States,  in 
virtue  of  their  sovereign  capacity.  The  inherent  right 
in  the  people  to  reform  their  government  I  do  not  deny; 
and  they  have  anotlier  right,  and  tliat  is,  to  resist  uncon-  25 
stitutional  laws,  without  overturning  the  government, 
it  is  no  doctrine  of  mine  that  unconstitutional  laws 
bind  the  people.  The  great  question  is,  whose  preroga- 
tive is  it  to  decide  on  the  constitutionality  or' unconsti- 
tutionality of  the  laws  ?  On  that  the  main  debate  30 
liinges.  The  proposition  tliat,  in  case  of  a  supposed 
violation  of  the  Constitution  by  Congress,  the 'States 
liave  a  constitutional  right  to  interfere  and  annul  the 
law  of  Congress,  is  the  proposition  of  tlie  gentleman. 


226  Webster. 

I  do  not  admit  it.  If  the  gentleman  had  intended  no 
more  than  to  assert  the  right  of  revolution  for  justifiable 
cause,  he  would  have  said  only  what  all  agree  to.  But  I 
cannot  conceive  that  there  can  be  a  middle  course,  be- 

5  tween  submission  to  the  laws,  when  regularly  pro- 
nounced constitutional,  on  the  one  hand,  and  open 
resistance,  which  is  revolution  or  rebellion,  on  tlie  other. 
I  say,  the  riglit  of  a  State  to  annul  a  law  of  Congress 
cannot  be  maintained  but  on  the  ground  of  the  inalien- 

10  able  right  of  man  to  resist  oppression ;  that  is  to  say, 
upon  the  gfound  of  revolution.  I  admit  that  there  is 
an  ultimate  violent  remedy^  al)ove  the  Constitution  and 
in  defiance  of  the  Constitution,  which  may  be\resorted  to 
when  a  revolution  is  to  be  justified.     But  I  do  not  admit 

15  that,  under  the  Constitution  and  in  conformity  with  it, 
there  is  any  mode  in  which  a  State  government,  as  a 
member  of  the  Union,  can  interfere  and  stop  tlie  prog- 
ress of  the  general  government,  by  force  of  her  own 
laws,  under  any  circumstances  whatever. 

20  This  leads  us  to  inquire  into  the  origin  of  this  gov- 
ernment and  the  source  of  its  power.  Whose  agent  is 
it  ?  Is  it  the  creature  of  the  State  legislatures,  or  the 
creature  of  the  people  ?  If  the  government  of  the 
United  States  be  the  agent  of  the  State  governments, 

25  then  they  may  control  it,  provided  they  can  agree  in 
the  manner  of  controlling  it;  if  it  be  the  agent  of  the 
people,  then  the  people  alone  can  control  it,  restrain  it, 
modify,  or  reform  it.  It  is  observable  enough,  that  the 
doctrine  Jor  which  the   honorable   gentleman   contends 

30  leads  him  to  the  necessity  of  maintaining,  not  only  that 
this  general  government  is  the  creature  of  the  States,  but 
that  it  is  the  creature  of  each  of  the  States  severally,  so 
that  each  may  assert  the  power  for  itself  of  determining 
whether  it  acts  within  the  limits  of  its  authority.     It 

35  is  the  servant  of  four-and-tweuty  masters,  of  different 


Reply  to  JSayne.  227 

wills  and  different  purposes,  and  yet  bound  to  obey 
all.  This  absurdity  (for  it  seems  no  less)  arises  from 
a  misconception  as  to  the  origin  of  this  government 
and  its  true  character.  It  is,  Sir,  the  people's  Consti- 
tution, the  people's  government,  made  for  the  people,  s 
made  by  the  people,  and  answerable  to  the  people. 
The  people  of  the  United  States  have  declared  that 
this  Constitution  shall  be  the  supreme  law.  We  must 
either  ailmit  the  proposition,  or  dispute  their  authority. 
Tlie  States  are,  unquestionably,  sovereign,  so  far  as  lO 
tlieir  sovereignty  is  not  affected  by  this  supreme  law. 
IJut  the  State  legislatures,  as  political  bodies,  how- 
ever sovereign,  are  yet  not  sovereign  over  the  peo- 
ple. So  far  as  the  people  have  given  power  to  the 
general  government,  so  far  the  grant  is  unquestiona- 16 
bly  good,  and  the  government  holds  of  the  people,  and 
not  of  the  State  governments.  We  are  all  agents  of  the 
same  supreme  power,  the  people.  The  general  govern- 
ment and  the  State  governments  derive  their  authority 
t  rom  the  same  source.  Neither  can,  in  relation  to  the  20 
other,  be  called  primary,  though  one  is  definite  and 
restricted,  and  the  other  general  and  residuary.  The 
national  government  possesses  those  powers  which  it 
can  be  shown  the  people  liave  conferred  on  it,  and  no 
more.  All  the  rest  belongs  to  the  State  governments,  or  25 
to  the  people  themselves.  So  far  as  the  people  have 
restrained  State  sovereignty,  by  the  expression  of  their 
will,  in  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  so  far,  it 
must  be  admitted,  State  sovereignty  is  effectually  con- 
trolled. I  do  not  contend  that  it  is,  or  ought  to  be,  30 
controlled  farther.  The  sentiment  to  which  I  have 
referred  proi)Ounds  that  State  sovereignty  is  only  to  be 
controlled  by  its  own  "  feeling  of  justice ;  "  that  is  to  say, 
it  is  not  to  be  controlled  at  all ;  for  one  wlio  is  to  fol- 
hnv  his  o\v!i  fccliiii^s   is  uiul(»r  no  h\i^al  control.     Now,  35 


228  Webster. 

however  men  may  think  this  ought  to  be,  the  fact  is,  that 
the  people  of  the  United  States  have  chosen  to  impose 
control  on  State  sovereignties.  There  are  those,  doubt- 
less, who  wish  they  had  been  left  without  restraint ;  but 
6  the  Constitution  has  ordered  the  matter  differently.  To 
make  war,  for  instance,  is  an  exercise  of  sovereignty ; 
but  the  Constitution  declares  that  no  State  shall  make 
war.  To  coin  money  is  another  exercise  of  sovereign 
power ;  but  no  State  is  at  liberty  to  coin  money.     Again, 

10  the  Constitution  says  that  no  sovereign  State  shall  be  so 
sovereign  as  to  make  a  treaty.  These  prohibitions,  it 
must  be  confessed,  are  a  control  on  the  State  sovereignty 
of  South  Carolina,  as  well  as  of  the  other  States,  which 
does  not  arise  "  from  her  own  feelings  of  honorable  jus- 

15  tice."  Such  an  opinion,  therefore,  is  in  defiance  of  the 
plainest  provisions  of  the  Constitution. 

There  are  other  proceedings  of  public  bodies  which 
have  already  been  alluded  to,  and  to  which  I  refer  again, 
for  the  purpose  of  ascertaining  more  fully  what  is  the 

20  length  and  breadth  of  that  doctrine  denominated  the 
Carolina  doctrine,  which  the  honorable  member  has  now 
stood  up  on  this  floor  to  maintain.  In  one  of  them  I 
find  it  resolved,  that  "  the  tariff  of  1828,  and  every  other 
tariff  designed  to  promote  one  branch  of  industry  at  the 

25  expense  of  others,  is  contrary  to  the  meaning  and  inten- 
tion of  the  federal  compact ;  and  such  a  dangerous, 
palpable,  and  deliberate  usurpation  of  power,  by  a. 
determined  majority,  wielding  the  general  government 
beyond  the  limits  of  its  delegated  powers,  as  calls  upon 

30  States  which  compose  the  suffering  minority,  in  their 
sovereign  capacity,  to  exercise  the  powers  which,  as 
sovereigns,  necessarily  devolve  upon  them  when  their 
compact  is  violated." 

Observe,  Sir,  that  this  resolution  holds  the  tariff  of 

35  1828,  and  every  other  tariff  designed  to  promote  one 


Reply  to  Hayne,  229 

branch  of  industry  at  the  expense  of  another,  to  be 
such  a  dangerous,  palpable,  and  deliberate  usurpation 
of  power,  as  calls  upon  the  States,  in  their  sovereign 
capacity,  to  interfere  by  their  own  authority.  This 
denunciation,  Mr.  President,  you  will  please  to  observe,  5 
includes  our  old  tariff  of  1816,  as  well  as  all  others; 
because  that  was  established  to  promote  the  interest 
of  the  manufacturers  of  cotton,  to  the  manifest  and 
admitted  injury  of  the  Calcutta  cotton  trade.  Observe, 
again,  that  all  the  qualifications  are  here  rehearsed  and  10 
charged  upon  the  tariff,  which  are  necessary  to  bring  the 
case  within  the  gentleman's  proposition.  The  tariif  is  a 
usurpation :  it  is  a  dangerous  usurpation ;  it  is  a  palpa- 
ble usurpation  ;  it  is  a  deliberate  usurpation.  It  is  such 
a  usurpation,  therefore,  as  calls  upon  the  States  to  exer- 15 
else  their  right  of  interference.  Here  is  a  case,  then, 
within  the  gentleman's  principles,  and  all  his  qualifica- 
tions of  his  principles.  It  is  a  case  for  action.  The 
Constitution  is  plainly,  dangerously,  palpably,  and  delib- 
erately violated;  and  the  States  must  interpose  their  20 
own  authority  to  arrest  the  law.  Let  us  suppose  the 
State  of  South  Carolina  to  express  this  same  opinion  by 
the  voice  of  her  legislature.  That  would  be  very  impos- 
ing ;  but  what  then  ?  Is  the  voice  of  one  State  conclu- 
sive ?  It  so  happens  that,  at  the  very  moment  when  26 
South  Carolina  resolves  that  the  tariff  laws  are  unconsti- 
tutional, Pennsylvania  and  Kentucky  resolve  exactly  the 
IV  verse.  They  hold  those  laws  to  be  both  highly  proper 
and  strictly  constitutional.  And  now,  Sir,  how  does  the 
honorable  member  propose  to  deal  with  this  case  ?  How  30 
does  he  relieve  us  from  this  difficulty,  upon  any  principle 
of  his  ?  His  construction  gets  us  into  it ;  how  does  he 
1  (lopose  to  get  us  out  ? 

In  Carolina,  the  tariff  is  a  palpable,  deliberate  usurpar 
lion ;  Carolina,  therefore,  may  nullify  it,  and  refuse  to  36 


230  Webster, 

pay  the  duties.  In  Pennsylvania,  it  is  both  clearly  con- 
stitutional and  highly  expedient;  and  there  the  duties 
are  to  be  paid.  And  yet  we  live  under  a  government  of 
uniform  laws,  and  under  a  Constitution,  too,  wliich  con- 

5  tains  an  express  provision,  as  it  happens,  that  all  duties 
shall  be  equal  in  all  the  States.  Does  not  this  approach 
absurdity  ? 

If  there  be  no  power  to  settle  such  questions,  inde- 
pendent of  either  of  the  States,  is  not  the  whole  Union 

10  a  rope  of  sand  ?  Are  we  not  thrown  back  again,  pre- 
cisely, upon  the  old  Confederation  ? 

It  is  too  plain  to  be  argued.  Four  and  twenty  inter- 
preters of  constitutional  law,  each  with  a  power  to 
decide  for  itself,  and  none  with  authority  to  bind  any- 

15  body  else,  and  this  constitutional  law  the  only  bond  of 
their  union !  What  is  such  a  state  of  things  but  a 
mere  connection  during  pleasure,  or,  to  use  the  phrase- 
ology of  the  times,  during  feeling  ?  And  that  feeling, 
too,  not  the  feeling  of  the  people,  who  established  the 

20  Constitution,  but  the  feeling  of  the  State  govern- 
ments. 

In  another  of  the  South  Carolina  addresses,  having 
premised  that  the  crisis  requires  "all  the  concentrated 
energy  of  passion,"  an  attitude  of  open  resistance  to  the 

25  laws  of  the  Union  is  advised.  Open  resistance  to  the 
laws,  then,  is  the  constitutional  remedy,  the  conservative 
power  of  the  State,  which  the  South  Carolina  doctrines 
teach  f oi;.  the  redress  of  political  evils,  real  or  imaginary. 
And   its   authors   further  say  that,  appealing  with  con- 

30  fidence  to  the  Constitution  itself,  to  justify  their  opinions, 
they  cannot  consent  to  try  their  accuracy  by  the  courts 
of  justice.  In  one  sense,  indeed,  Sir,  this  is  assuming  an 
attitude  of  open  resistance  in  favor  of  liberty.  But  what 
sort  of  liberty  ?     The  liberty  of  establishing  their  own 

35  opinions,  in  defiance  of  the  opinions  of  all  others ;  the 


Reply  to  Hayne,  231 

liberty  of  jiul^'iii^'  and  ot  deciding  exclusively  them- 
selves, in  a  matter  in  which  othere  have  as  much  right 
to  judge  and  decide  as  they ;  the  liberty  of  placing  their 
own  opinions  above  the  judgment  of  all  others,  aljove  the 
laws,  and  above  the  Constitution.  This  is  their  liberty,  5 
and  this  is  the  fair  result  of  the  proposition  contended 
for  by  the  honorable  gentleman.  Or  it  may  be  more 
properly  said,  it  is  identical  with  it,  rather  than  a  result 
from  it.  .  .  . 

And  now,  Sir,  what  I  have  first  to  say  on  this  subject  10 
is,  that  at  no  time,  and  under  no  circumstances,  has  New 
England,  or  any  State  in  New  England,  or  any  respect- 
able body  of  persons  in  New  England,  or  any  public  man 
of  standing  in  New  England,  put  forth  such  a  doctrine 
as  this  Carolina  doctrine.  15 

The  gentleman  has  found  no  case,  he  can  find  none,  to 
supjwrt  his  own  opinions  by  New  England  authority. 
New  England  has  studied  the  Constitution  in  other 
schools,  and  under  other  teachers.  She  looks  upon  it 
with  other  regards,  and  deems  more  highly  and  rever-  20 
ently  both  of  its  just  authority  and  its  utility  and  excel- 
lence. The  history  of  her  legislative  proceedings  may 
be  traced.  The  ephemeral  effusions  of  temix)rary  bodies, 
called  together  by^e  excitement  of  the  occasion,  may 
be  hunted  up ;  they  have  been  hunted  up.  The  opinions  25 
and  votes  of  her  public  men,  in  and  out  of  Congress,  may 
be  explored.  It  will  all  be  in  vain.  The  Carolina  doc- 
trine can  derive  from  her  neither  countenance  nor  support. 
She  rejects  it  now;  she  always  did  reject  it;  and,  till 
she  loses  her  senses,  she  always  will  reject  it.  The  hon-  30 
orable  member  has  referred  to  expressions  on  the  subject 
of  the  embargo  law,  made  in  this  place  by  an  honorable 
and  venerable  gentleman  [Mr.  Hillhouse],  now  favoring 
us  with  his  presence.  He  quotes  that  distinguished  Sen- 
ator as  saying  that,  in  his  judgment,  the  embargo  law  35 


232  Webster. 

was  unconstitutional,  and  that,  therefore,  in  his  opinion, 
the  people  were  not  bound  to  obey  it.  That,  Sir,  is  per- 
fectly constitutional  language.  An  unconstitutional  law 
is  not  binding ;  but  then  it  does  not  rest  with  a  resolu- 
5  tion  or  a  law  of  a  State  legislature  to  decide  whether  an 
act  of  Congress  be,  or  be  not,  constitutional.  An  uncon- 
stitutional act  of  Congress  would  not  bind  the  people  of 
this  District,  although  they  have  no  legislature  to  inter- 
fere in  their  behalf ;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  a  constitu- 

10  tional  law  of  Congress  does  bind  the  citizens  of  every 
State,  although  all  their  legislatures  should  undertake  to 
annul  it  by  act  or  resolution.  The  venerable  Connecticut 
Senator  is  a  constitutional  lawyer  of  sound  principles 
and  enlarged  knowledge ;  a  statesman  practised  and  ex- 

15  perienced,  bred  in  the  company  of  Washington,  and  hold- 
ing just  views  upon  the  nature  of  our  governments.  He 
believed  the  embargo  unconstitutional,  and  so  did  others ; 
but  what  then  ?  Who  did  he  suppose  was  to  decide  that 
question  ?    The  State  legislatures  ?     Certainly  not.     No 

20  such  sentiment  ever  escaped  his  lips. 

Let  us  follow  up,  Sir,  this  New  England  opposition  to 
the  embargo  laws ;  let  us  trace  it  till  we  discern  the 
principle  which  controlled  and  governed  New  England 
throughout  the  whole  course  of  that  opposition.     We 

25  shall  then  see  what  similarity  there  is  between  the  New 
England  school  of  constitutional  opinions,  and  this  mod- 
ern Carolina  school.  .  .  .  No  doubt.  Sir,  a  great  ma- 
jority of  the  people  of  New  England  conscientiously 
believed  the  embargo  law  of  1807  imconstitutional ;  as 

30  conscientiously,  certainly,  as  the  people  of  South  Carolina 
hold  that  opinion  of  the  tariff.  They  reasoned  thus : 
Congress  has  power  to  regulate  commerce;  but  here  is 
a  law,  they  said,  stopping  all  commerce,  and  stopping  it 
indefinitely.     The  law  is  perpetual;   that  is,  it  is  not 

35  limited  in  point  of  time,  and  must,  of  course,  continue 


Reply  to  Hayne,  233 

until  it  shall  be  repealed  by  some  other  law.  It  is  as 
I»erpetual,  therefore,  as  the  law  against  treason  or  mur- 
der. Now,  is  this  regulating  commerce,  or  destroying  it  ? 
Is  it  guiding,  controlling,  giving  the' rule  to  commerce, 
I  s  a  subsisting  thing ;  or  is  it  putting  an  end  to  it  alto-  5 
u,^'ther  ?  Nothing  is  more  certain  than  that  a  majority 
in  New  England  deemed  this  law  a  violation  of  the  Con- 
stitution. The  very  case  required  by  the  gentleman  to 
justify  State  interference  had  then  arisen.     Massachu- 

•  tts  believed  this  law  to  be  "  a  deliberate,  palpable,  and  lO 
dangerous  exercise  of  a  power  not  gmnted  by  the  Con- 
stitution." Deliberate  it  was,  for  it  was  long  continued ; 
palpable,  she  thought  it,  as  no  words  in  the  Constitution 
gave  the  power,  and  only  a  construction,  in  her  opinion 
most  violent,  raised  it ;  dangerous  it  was,  since  it  threat- 15 
tiled  utter  loiin  to  her  most  important  interests.  Here, 
then,  was  a  Carolina  case.  How  did  Massachusetts  deal 
with  it  ?  It  was,  as  she  thought,  a  plain,  manifest,  pal- 
j)able  violation  of  the  Constitution,  and  it  brought  ruin 
to  her  doors.     Thousands  of  families,  and  hundreds  of  20 

housands  of  individuals,  were  beggared  by  it.  While 
:>he  saw  and  felt  all  this,  she  saw  and  felt,  also,  that,  as 
;i  measure  of  national  policy,  it  was  perfectly  futile;  that 

he  country  was  no  way  benefited  by  that  which  caused 

o  much  individual  distress;  that  it  was  efficient  only  25 
lor  the  production  of  evil,  and  all  that  evil  inflicted  on 
•mrselves.     In  such  a  case,  under  such  circumstances, 
how  did  Massachusetts  demean  herself  ?     Sir,  she  remon-  '— • 
strated,  she  memorialized,  she  addressed  herself  to  the 
general  government,  not  exactly  "  with  the  concentrated  30 

iiergy  of  passion,''  but  with  her  own  strong  sense,  and 
tlie  energy  of  sober  conviction.  But  she  did  not  inter- 
pose the  arm  of  her  own  power  to  arrest  the  law,  and 
break  the  embargo.  Far  from  it.  Her  principles  bound 
her  to  two  things ;  and  she  followed  her  principles,  lead  39 


234  Webster. 

where  they  might.  First,  to  submit  to  every  consti- 
tutional law  of  Congress;  and,  secondly,  if  the  constitu- 
tional validity  of  the  law  be  doubted,  to  refer  that 
question  to  the  decision  of  the  proper  tribunals.  The 
5  first  principle  is  vain  and  ineffectual  without  the  second. 
A  majority  of  us  in  New  England  believed  the  embargo 
law  unconstitutional;  but  the  great  question  was,  and 
always  will  be,  in  such  cases,  Wlio  is  to  decide  this? 
Who  is  to  judge  between  the  people  and  the  government  ? 

10  And,  Sir,  it  is  quite  plain  that  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States  confers  on  the  government  itself,  to  be 
exercised  by  its  appropriate  department,  and  under  its 
own  responsibility  to  the  people,  this  power  of  deciding 
ultimately  and  conclusively  upon  the  just  extent  of  its 

15  own  authority.  If  this  had  not  been  done,  we  should 
not  have  advanced  a  single  step  beyond  the  old  Confed- 
eration. 

Being  fully  of  opinion  that  the  embargo  law  was  un- 
constitutional, the  people  of  New  England  were  yet 

20  equally  clear  in  the  opinion  —  it  was  a  matter  they  did 
[not]  doubt  upon  —  that  the  question,  after  all,  must  be 
decided  by  the  judicial  tribunals  of  the  United  States. 
Before  those  tribunals,  therefore,  they  brought  the  ques- 
tion.    Under  the  provisions  of  the  law  they  had  given 

25  bonds  to  millions  in  amount,  and  which  were  alleged 
to  be  forfeited.  They  suffered  the  bonds  to  be  sued,  and 
thus  raised  the  question.  In  the  old-fashioned  way  of 
settling  disputes  they  went  to  law.  The  case  came  to 
hearing  and  solemn  argument ;   and  he  who   espoused 

30  their  cause,  and  stood  up  for  them  against  the  validity 
of  the  embargo  act,  was  none  other  than  that  great  man 
of  whom  the  gentleman  has  made  honorable  mention, 
Samuel  Dexter.  He  was  then,  Sir,  in  the  fullness  of  his 
knowledge  and  the  maturity  of  his  strength.     He  had 

35  retired  from  long  and  distinguished  public  service  here, 


Reply  to  Rayne.  235 

'  the  renewed  pursuit  of  professional  duties ;  carrying 
with  him  all  that  enlargement  and  expansion,  all  the 
new  strength  and  force,  which  an  acquaintance  with  the 
more  general  subjects  discussed  in  the  national  councils 
is  capable  of  adding  to  professional  attainment  in  a  mind  5 
of  true  greatness  and  comprehension.     He  was  a  lawyer, 
and  he  was  also  a  statesman.  .  .  .     He   put  into  his 
effort  his  whole  heart,  as  well  as  all  the  powers  of  his 
understanding;  for  he  had  avowed  in  the  most  public 
manner  his   entire   concurrence  with  his  neighbors  on  lo 
the  point  in  dispute.     He  argued  the  cause ;  it  was  lost, 
and  New  England  submitted.     The  established  tribunals 
pronounced   the   law  constitutional,  and  New  England 
acquiesced.     Now,  Sir,  is  not  this  the  exact  opposite  of 
the  doctrine  of  the   gentleman  from   South  Carolina  ?  15 
According  to  him,  instead  of  referring  to  the  judicial 
tribunals,  we   should  have  broken  up  the  embargo  by 
laws  of  our  own ;   we  should  have  repealed  it,  quoad  - 
New  England;  for  we  had  a  strong,  palpable,  and  op- 
pressive case.     Sir,  we  believed  the  embargo  unconstitu-  20 
tional;  but  still  that  was  matter  of  opinion,  and  who 
was  to  decide  it  ?    We  thought  it  a  clear  case ;   but, 
nevertheless,  we  did  not  take  the   law  into  our  own 
hands,  because  we  did  not  wish  to  bring  about  a  revolu- 
tion, nor  to  break  up  the  Union ;  for  I  maintain  that,  25 
between  submission  to  the  decision  of  the  constituted 
tribunals  and  revolution,  or  disunion,  there  is  no  middle 
ground  ;  there  is  no  ambiguous  condition,  half  allegiance 
and  half  rebellion.     And,  Sir,  how  futile,  how  very  futile, 
it  is  to  admit  the  right  of  State  interference,  and  then  30 
attempt  to  save  it  from  the  character  of  unlawful  resist- 
ance, by  adding  terms  of  qualification  to  the  causes  and 
occasions,  leaving  all  these  qualifications,  like  the  case 
itself,  in  the  discretion  of  the  State  governments.     It 
must  be  a  clear  case,  it  is  said,  a  deliberate  case,  a  pal-  35 


236  Webster. 

pable  case,  a  dangerous  case.  But  then  the  State  is  still 
left  at  liberty  to  decide  for  herself  what  is  clear,  what 
is  deliberate,  what  is  palpable,  what  is  dangerous.     Do 

^jwijectives  and  epithets  avail  anything  ? 
6  Sir,  the  human  mind  is  so  constituted  that  the  merits 
of  both  sides  of  a  controversy  appear  very  clear  and  very 
palpable  to  those  who  respectively  espouse  them;  and 
both  sides  usually  grow  clearer  as  the  controversy  ad- 
vances.    South  Carolina  sees  unconstitutionality  in  the 

10  tariff ;  she  sees  oppression  there  also,  and  she  sees  dan- 
ger. Pennsylvania,  with  a  vision  not  less  sharp,  looks 
at  the  same  tariff,  and  sees  no  such  thing  in  it ;  she  sees 
it  all  constitutional,  all  useful,  all  safe.  The  faith  of 
South  Carolina  is  strengthened  by  opposition,  and  she 

15  now  not  only  sees,  but  resolves,  that  the  tariff  is  palpably 
unconstitutional,  oppressive,  and  dangerous ;  but  Penn- 
sylvania, not  to  be  behind  her  neighbors,  and  equally 
willing  to  strengthen  her  own  faith  by  a  confident 
asseveration,   resolves   also,  and   gives   to  every  warm 

20  affirmative  of  South  Carolina,  a  plain,  downright,  Penn- 
sylvania negative.     South  Carolina,  to  show  the  strength 
and  unity  of  her  opinion,  brings  her  assembly  to  a  unan^^^ 
imity  within  seven  voices ;  Pennsylvania,  not  to  be  out- 
done in  this  respect  more  than  in  others,  reduces  her 

25  dissentient  fraction  to  a  single  vote.  Now,  Sir,  again  I 
ask  the  gentleman,  AVhat  is  to  be  done  ?  Are  these  States 
both  right  ?  Is  he  bound  to  consider  them  both  right  ? 
If  not,  which  is  in  the  wrong  ?  or,  rather,  which  has  the 
best  right  to  decide  ?     And  if  he,  and  if  I,  are  not  to 

30  know  what  the  Constitution  means,  and  what  it  is,  till 
those  two  State  legislatures,  and  the  twenty-two  others, 
shall  agree  in  its  construction,  what  have  we  sworn  to 
when  we  have  sworn  to  maintain  it?  I  was  forcibly 
struck,  Sir,  with  one  reflection,  as  the  gentleman  went 

35  on  in  his  speech.    He  quoted  Mr.  Madison's  resolutions 


Reply  to  Hayne.  237 

to  prove  that  a  State  may  interfere,  in  a  case  of  deliber- 
ate, palpable,  and  dangerous  exercise  of  a  power  not 
granted.  The  honorable  member  supposes  the  tariff  law 
to  be  such  an  exercise  of  power ;  and  that,  consequently, 
a  case  has  arisen  in  which  the  State  may,  if  it  see  fit,  5 
interfere  by  its  own  law.  Now  it  so  happens,  neverthe- 
less, that  Mr.  Madison  deems  this  same  tariff  law  quite 
constitutional.  Instead  of  a  clear  and  palpable  violation, 
it  is,  in  his  judgment,  no  violation  at  all.  So  that,  while 
t  liey  use  his  authority  for  a  hypothetical  case,  they  re-  lo 
ject  it  in  the  very  case  before  them.  All  this,  Sir,  shows 
the  inherent  futility,  I  had  almost  used  a  stronger  word, 
of  conceding  this  power  of  interference  to  the  States, 
and  then  attempting  to  secure  it  from  abuse  by  imposing 
qualifications  of  which  the  States  themselves  are  to  judge.  16 
( )ne  of  two  things  is  tnie ;  either  the  laws  of  the  Union 
are  l>eyond  the  discretion  and  beyond  the  control  of  the 
States,  or  else  we  have  no  Constitution  of  general  gov- 
ernment, and  are  thrust  back  again  to  the  days  of  the 
Confederation.  20 

Let  me  here  say.  Sir,  that  if  the  gentleman's  doctrine 
liad  been  received  and  acted  upon  in  New  England,  in 
t  lie  times  of  the  embargo  and  non-intercourse,  we  should 
probjibly  not  now  have  been  here.  The  government 
would  very  likely  have  gone  to  pieces,  and  crumbled  into  26 
(lust.  No  stronger  case  can  ever  arise  than  existed 
under  those  laws  ;  no  States  can  ever  entertain  a  clearer 
conviction  than  the  New  England  States  then  entertained  ; 
and  if  they  had  been  under  the  influence  of  that  heresy 
of  opinion,  as  I  must  call  it,  which  the  honorable  mem-  30 
ber  espouses,  this  Union  would,  in  all  probability,  have 
been  scattered  to  the  four  winds.  I  ask  the  gentleman, 
therefore,  to  apply  his  principles  to  that  case  ;  I  ask  him 
to  come  forth  and  declare  whether,  in  his  opinion,  the 
New  England  States  would  have  been  justified  in  inter-  36 


238  Webster, 

fering  to  break  up  the  embargo  system  under  the  con- 
scientious opinions  which  they  held  upon  it  ?  Had  they 
a  right  to  annul  that  law  ?  Does  he  admit  or  deny  ? 
If  that  which  is  thought  palpably  unconstitutional  in 

5  South  Carolina  justifies  that  State  in  arresting  the  prog- 
ress of  the  law,  tell  me  whether  that  which  was  thought 
palpably  unconstitutional  also  in  Massachusetts  would 
have  justified  her  in  doing  the  same  thing.  Sir,  I  deny 
the  whole  doctrine.     It  has  not  a  foot  of  ground  in  the 

10  Constitution  to  stand  on.  No  public  man  of  reputation 
ever  advanced  it  in  Massachusetts,  in  tlie  warmest  times, 
or  could  maintain  himself  upon  it  there  at  any  time. 

I  wish  now,  Sir,  to  make  a  remark  upon  the  Virginia 
resolutions  of  1798.     I  cannot  undertake  to  say  how 

16  these  resolutions  were  understood  by  those  who  passed 
them.  Their  language  is  not  a  little  indefinite.  In  the 
case  of  the  exercise  by  Congress  of  a  dangerous  power 
not  granted  to  them,  the  resolutions  assert  the  right,  on 
the  part  of  the  State,  to  interfere  and  arrest  the  progress 

20  of  the  evil.  This  is  susceptible  of  more  than  one  inter- 
pretation. It  may  mean  no  more  than  that  the  States 
may  interfere  by  complaint  and  remonstrance  ;  or  by  pro- 
posing to  the  people  an  alteration  of  the  federal  Consti- 
tution.    This  would  all  be  quite  unobjectionable.     Or  it 

25  may  be  that  no  more  is  meant  than  to  assert  the  general 
right  of  revolution,  as  against  all  governments,  in  cases 
of  intolerable  oppression.  This  no  one  doubts,  and  this, 
in  my  opinion,  is  all  that  he  who  framed  the  resolutions 
could  have  meant  by  it ;  for  I  shall  not  readily  believe 

30  that  he  was  ever  of  opinion  that  a  State,  under  the  Con- 
stitution and  in  conformity  with  it,  could,  upon  the 
ground  of  her  own  opinion  of  its  unconstitutionality, 
however  clear  and  palpable  she  might  think  the  case, 
annul  a  law  of  Congress  so  far  as  it  should  operate  on 

35  herself,  by  her  o^ti  legislative  power. 


Reply  to  Hayne,  289 

I  must  now  beg  to  ask,  Sir,  whence  is  this  supposed 
right  of  the  States  derived?  Where  do  they  find  the 
power  to  interfere  with  the  laws  of  the  Union?  Sir, 
the  opinion  which  the  honorable  gentleman  maintains 
is  a  notion  founded  in  a  total  misapprehension,  in  my  5 
judgment,  of  the  origin  of  this  government,  and  of  the 
foundation  on  which  it  stands.  I  hold  it  to  be  a  popular 
government,  erected  by  the  people ;  those  who  adminis- 
ter it,  responsible  to  the  people;  and  itself  capable  of 
being  amended  and  modified,  just  as  the  people  may  lo 
choose  it  should  l)e.  It  is  as  popular,  just  as  truly 
emanating  from  the  people,  as  the  State  governments. 
It  is  created  for  one  purpose ;  the  State  governments  for 
another.  It  has  its  own  powers ;  they  have  theirs. 
There  is  no  more  authority  with  them  to  arrest  the  15 
operation  of  a  law  of  Congress,  than  with  Congress  to 
arrest  the  operation  of  their  laws.  We  are  here  to 
administer  a  Constitution  emanating  immediately  from 
the  people,  and  trusted  by  them  to  our  administration. 
It  is  not  the  creature  of  the  State  governments.  It  is  of  20 
no  moment  to  the  argument,  that  certain  acts  of  the 
State  legislatures  are  necessary  to  fill  our  seats  in  this 
body.  That  is  not  one  of  their  original  State  powers,  a 
part  of  the  sovereignty  of  the  State.  It  is  a  duty  which 
the  people,  by  the  Constitution  itself,  have  imposed  on  25 
the  State  legislatures,  and  which  they  might  have  left  to 
be  performed  elsewhere,  if  they  had  seen  fit.  So  they 
have  left  the  choice  of  President  with  electors ;  but  all 
this  does  not  affect  the  proposition  that  this  whole  gov- 
ernment, President,  Senate,  and  House  of  Representa-  30 
tives,  is  a  i)opular  government.  It  leaves  it  still  all  its 
popular  character.  The  governor  of  a  State  (in  some  of 
the  States)  is  chosen,  not  directly  by  the  i)eople,  but  by 
those  who  are  chosen  by  the  people  for  the  purpose  of 
performing,  among  other  duties,  that  of  electing  a  gov-  35 


240  Webster, 

emor.  Is  the  government  of  the  State,  on  that  account, 
not  a  popular  government?  This  government,  Sir,  is 
the  independent  offspring  of  the  popular  will.  It  is 
not  the  creature  of  State  legislatures ;  nay  more,  if  the 
5  whole  truth  must  be  told,  the  people  brought  it  into 
existence,  established  it,  and  have  hitherto  supported  it, 
for  the  very  purpose,  amongst  others,  of  imposing  cer- 
tain salutary  restraints  on  State  sovereignties.  The 
States  cannot    now   make   war;    they  cannot    contract 

10  alliances ;  they  cannot  make,  each  for  itself,  separate 
regulations  of  commerce ;  they  cannot  lay  imposts ;  they 
cannot  coin  money.  If  this  Constitution,  Sir,  be  the 
creature  of  State  legislatures,  it  must  be  admitted  that 
it  has  obtained  a  strange  control  over  the  volitions  of 

15  its  creators. 

The  people,  then,  Sir,  erected  this  government.  They 
gave  it  a  Constitution,  and  in  that  Constitution  they  have 
enumerated  the  powers  which  they  bestow  on  it.  They 
have  made  it  a  limited  government.     They  liave  defined 

20  its  authority.  They  have  restrained  it  to  the  exercise  of 
such  powei-s  as  are  granted ;  and  all  othei-s,  they  declare, 
are  reserved  to  the  States  or  the  people.  But,  Sir,  they 
have  not  stopped  here.  If  they  had,  they  would  have 
accomplished  but  half  their  work.     No  definition  can  be 

25  so  clear  as  to  avoid  possibility  of  doubt ;  no  limitation  so 
precise  as  to  exclude  all  uncertainty.  Who,  then,  shall 
construe  this  grant  of  the  people  ?  Who  shall  interpret 
their  will,  where  it  may  be  supposed  they  have  left  it 
doubtful  ?     With  whom   do   they  repose   this   ultimate 

30  right  of  deciding  on  the  powers  of  the  government  ? 
Sir,  they  have  settled  aU  this  in  the  fuUest  manner. 
They  have  left  it  with  the  government  itself  in  its 
appropriate  branches.  Sir,  the  very  chief  end,  the  main 
design  for  which  the  whole  Constitution  was  framed  and 

35  adopted,  was  to  establish  a  government  that  should  not 


Reply  to  Hayne.  241 

be  obliged  to  act  through  State  agency,  or  depend  on 
State  opinion  and  State  discretion.  The  people  had  had 
quite  enough  of  that  kind  of  government  under  the  Con- 
federation. Under  that  system  the  legal  action,  the 
application  of  law  to  individuals,  belonged  exclusively  5 
to  the  States.  Congress  could  only  recommend;  their 
acts  were  not  of  binding  force,  till  the  States  had  adopted 
and  sanctioned  them.  Are  we  in  that  condition  still? 
Are  we  yet  at  the  mercy  of  State  discretion  and  State 
construction  ?  Sir,  if  we  are,  then  vain  will  be  our  at-  lo 
tempt  to  maintain  the  Constitution  under  which  we 
sit. 

But,  Sir,  the  people  have  wisely  provided  in  the  Con- 
stitution itself  a  proper,  suitable  mode  and  tribunal  for 
settling  questions  of  constitutional   law.     There  are  in  15 
the   Constitution   grants    of    powers    to  Congress,   and 
restrictions  on  these  powers.     There  are,  also,  prohibi- 
tions on  the  States.     Some  authority  must,  therefore, 
necessarily  exist,  having  the  ultimate  jurisdiction  to  fix 
and  ascertain  the  interpretation  of  these  grants,  restric-  20 
tions,   and  prohibitions.      The  Constitution   has    itself 
pointed  out,  ordained,  and  established  that  authority. 
How  has  it  accomplished  this  great  and  essential  end  ? 
By  declaring,  Sir,  that  "  tJie  Constitution  and  the  laws  of 
the  United  States  made  in  pursuance  thereof  shall  be  the  25 
mtpreme  law  of  the  landj  anything  in  the  Constitution  or 
laws  of  any  State  to  the  contrary  fiotwitlistanding.^* 
— This,  Sir,  was  the  firet  great  step.     By  this  the  su- 
premacy of  the   Constitution  and  laws  of  the  United 
States  is  declared.     The  people  so  will  it.    No  State  law  30 
is  to  be  valid  which  comes  in  conflict  with  the  Constitu- 
tion or  any  law  of  the  United  States  passed  in  pursuance 
of  it.     But  who  shall  decide  this  question  of  interfer- 
ence?   To  whom  lies  the  last  appeal?    This,  Sir,  the 
Constitution  itself  decides  also,  by  declaring,  "  that  the  35 


242  Webster. 

judicial  power  shall  extend  to  all  cases  arising  under  the 
Constitution  and  laws  of  the  United  States.''^  These  two 
provisions  cover  the  whole  ground.  They  are,  in  truth, 
the  keystone  pi  the  arch !  With  these,  it  is  a  govem- 
6  ment ;  without  them  it  is  a  confederation.  In  pursuance 
of  these  clear  and  express  provisions,  Congress  estab- 
lished at  its  very  first  session,  in  the  judicial  act,  a  mode 
for  carrying  them  into  full  effect,  and  for  bringing  all 
questions  of  constitutional  power  to  the  final  decision  of 

10  the  Supreme  Court  It  then.  Sir,  became  a  government. 
It  then  had  the  means  of  self-protection;  and,  but  for 
this,  it  would,  in  all  probability,  have  been  now  among 
things  which  are  past.  Having  constituted  the  govern- 
ment and  declared  its  powers,  the  people  have  further 

15  said  that,  since  somebody  must  decide  on  the  extent  of 
these  powers,  the  government  shall  itself  decide ;  subject 
always,  like  other  popular  governments,  to  its  responsi- 
bility to  the  people.  And  now.  Sir,  I  repeat,  how  is  it 
that  a  State  legislature  acquires  any  power  to  interfere  ? 

20  Who,  or  what,  gives  them  the  right  to  say  to  the  peo- 
ple, "  We,  who  are  your  agents  and  servants  for  one  pur- 
pose, will  undertake  to  decide  that  your  other  agents  and 
servants,  appointed  by  you  for  another  purpose,  have 
transcended  the  authority  you  gave  them !  "     The  reply 

25  would  be,  I  think,  not  impertinent,  —  "  Who  made  you 
a  judge  over  another's  servants  ?  To  their  own  masters 
they  stand  or  fall." 

Sir,  I  deny  this  power  of  State  legislatures  altogether. 
It  cannot  stand   the  test   of   examination.     Gentlemen 

30  may  say  that,  in  an  extreme  case,  a  State  government 
might  protect  the  people  from  intolerable  oppression. 
Sir,  in  such  a  case,  the  people  might  protect  themselves 
without  the  aid  of  the  State  governments.  Such  a  case 
Avarrants  revolution.     It  must  make,  when  it  comes,  a 

35  law  for  itself.     A  nullifying  act  of  a  State  legislature 


Reply  to  Hayne,  243 

cannot  alter  the  case,  nor  make  resistance  any  more  law- 
ful. In  maintaining  these  sentiments,  Sir,  I  am  but  as- 
serting the  rights  of  the  people.  I  state  what  they  have 
declared,  and  insist  on  their  right  to  declare  it.  They 
have  chosen  to  repose  this  power  in  the  general  govern-  6 
ment,  and  I  think  it  my  duty  to  support  it,  like  other 
iion&titutional  powers. 

For  myself,  Sir,  I  do  not  admit  the  jurisdiction  of 
South  Carolina,  or  any  other  State,  to  prescribe  my  con- 
stitutional duty ;  or  to  settle,  between  me  and  the  people,  lo 
the  validity  of  laws  of  Congress,  for  which  I  have  voted. 
I  decline  her  umpirage.  I  have  not  sworn  to  support 
the  Constitution  according  to  her  construction  of  its 
clauses.  I  have  not  stipulated,  by  my  oath  of  office  or 
otherwise,  to  come  under  any  responsibility,  except  to  15 
the  people  and  those  whom  they  have  appointed  to  pass 
upon  the  question,  whether  laws  supported  by  my  votes 
conform  to  the  Constitution  of  the  country.  And,  Sir, 
if  we  look  to  the  general  nature  of  the  case,  could  any- 
thing have  been  more  preposterous  than  to  make  a  gov-  20 
ernment  for  the  whole  Union,  and  yet  leave  its  }X)wers 
subject,  not  to  one  interpretation,  but  to  thirteen,  or 
twenty-four  interpretations  ?  Instead  of  one  tribunal, 
established  by  all,  responsible  to  all,  with  power  to  decide 
for  all,  shall  constitutional  questions  be  left  to  four  and  25 
twenty  popular  bodies,  each  at  liberty  to  decide  for  it- 
self, and  none  bound  to  respect  the  decisions  of  others  ; 
and  each  at  liberty,  too,  to  give  a  new  construction  on 
every  new  election  of  its  own  members  ?  Would  any- 
thing, with  such  a  principle  in  it,  or  rather  with  such  a  30 
destitution  of  all  principle,  be  fit  to  be  called  a  govern- 
ment ?  No,  Sir ;  it  should  not  be  denominated  a  Consti- 
tution. It  should  be  called,  rather,  a  collection  of  topics 
for  everlasting  controversy ;  heads  of  debate  for  a  dispu- 
tatious jMjople.     It  would  not  be  a  government.     It  would  36 


244  Webster, 

not  be  adequate  to  any  practical  good,  nor  fit  for  any- 
country  to  live  under.  To  avoid  all  possibility  of  being 
misunderstood,  allow  me  to  repeat  again,  in  the  fullest 
manner,  that  I  claim  no  powers  for  the  government  by 
5  forced  or  unfair  construction.  I  admit  that  it  is  a  gov- 
ernment of  strictly  limited  powers,  of  enumerated,  spe- 
cified, and  particularized  powers ;  and  that  whatsoever  is 
not  granted  is  withheld.  But,  notwithstanding  all  this, 
and  however  the  grant  of  powers  may  be  expressed,  its 

10  limit  and  extent  may  yet,  in  some  cases,  admit  of  doubt ; 
and  the  general  government  would  be  good  for  nothing, 
it  would  be  incapable  of  long  existing,  if  some  mode  had 
not  been  provided  in  which  those  doubts,  as  they  should 
arise,  might  be  peaceably,  but  authoritatively  solved. 

16  And  now,  Mr.  President,  let  me  run  the  honorable  gen- 
tleman's doctrine  a  little  into  its  practical  application. 
Let  us  look  at  his  probable  modus  operandi.  If  a  thing 
can  be  done,  an  ingenious  man  can  tell  how  it  is  to  be 
done.     And  I  wish  to  be  informed  how  this  State  inter- 

20  ference  is  to  be  put  in  practice  without  violence,  blood- 
shed, and  rebellion.  We  will  take  the  existing  case  of 
the  tariff  law.  South  Carolina  is  said  to  have  made  up 
her  opinion  upon  it.  If  we  do  not  repeal  it  (as  we  prob- 
ably shall  not),  she  will  then  apply  to  the  case  the  rem- 

25  edy  of  her  doctrine.  She  will,  we  must  suppose,  pass  a 
law  of  her  legislature  declaring  the  several  acts  of  Con- 
gress, usually  called  the  tariff  laws,  null  and  void  so  far 
as  they  respect  South  Carolina  or  the  citizens  thereof. 
So  far,  all  is  a  paper  transaction,  and  easy  enough.     But 

30  the  collector  at  Charleston  is  collecting  the  duties  im- 
posed by  these  tariff  laws.  He,  therefore,  must  be 
stopped.  The  collector  will  seize  the  goods  if  the  tariff 
duties  are  not  paid.  The  State  authorities  will  under- 
take their  rescue  ;  the  marshal  with  his  posse  will  come 

35  to  the  collector's  aid ;  and  here  the  contesF  begins.     The 


Reply  to  Hayne.  246 

militia  of  the  State  will  be  called  out  to  sustain  the  nul- 
lifying act.  They  will  march,  Sir,  under  a  very  gallant 
leader ;  for  I  believe  the  honorable  member  himself  com- 
mands the  militia  of  that  part  of  the  State.  He  will 
raise  the  nullifying  act  on  his  standard,  and  spread  it  5 
out  as  his  banner.  It  will  have  a  preamble,  setting 
forth  that  the  tariff  laws  are  palpable,  deliberate,  and 
dangerous  violations  of  the  Constitution.  He  will  pro- 
ceed, with  this  banner  flying,  to  the  custom-house  in 

Charleston.  10 

"  All  the  while, 
Sonorous  metal  blowing  martial  sounds.^' 

Arrived  at  the  custom-house,  he  will  tell  the  collector 
that  he  must  collect  no  more  duties  under  any  of  the 
tariff  laws.  This  he  will  be  somewhat  puzzled  to  say,  by  15 
the  way,  with  a  grave  countenance,  considering  what 
hand  South  Carolina  herself  had  in  that  of  181G.  But, 
Sir,  the  collector  would  probably  not  desist  at  his  bid- 
ding. He  would  show  him  the  law  of  Congress,  the 
treasury  insti-uction,  and  his  own  oath  of  office.  He  20 
would  say  he  should  perform  his  duty,  come  what 
come  might. 

Here  would  ensue  a  pause,  for  they  say  that  a  certain 
stillness  precedes  the  tempest.  The  trumpeter  would 
hold  his  breath  a  while,  and  before  all  this  military  25 
array  should  fall  on  the  custom-house,  collector,  clerks, 
and  all,  it  is  very  probable  some  of  those  composing  it 
would  request  of  their  gallant  commander-in-chief  to  be 
informed  a  little  upon  the  point  of  law ;  for  they  have, 
doubtless,  a  just  respect  for  his  opinions  as  a  lawyer,  as  30 
well  as  for  his  bravery  as  a  soldier.  They  know  he  has 
read  Blackstone  and  the  Constitution,  as  well  as  Turenne 
and  Vauban.  They  would  ask  him,  therefore,  some- 
thing concerning  their  rights  in  this  matter.  They 
would  inquire  whether  it  was  not  somewhat  dangerous  35 


246  Webster, 

to  resist  a  law  of  the  United  States,  What  would  be 
the  nature  of  their  offence,  they  would  wish  to  learn,  if 
they  by  military  force  and  array  resisted  the  execution 
in  Carolina  of  a  law  of  the  United  States,  and  it  should 
6  turn  out,  after  all,  that  the  law  was  constitutional.  He 
would  answer,  of  course.  Treason.  No  lawyer  could 
give  any  other  answer.  John  Fries,  he  would  tell 
them,  had  learned  that  some  years  ago.  "  How  then," 
they  would  ask,  "  do  you  propose  to  defend  us  ?     We  are 

10  not  afraid  of  bullets,  but  treason  has  a  way  of  taking 
people  off  that  we  do  not  much  relish.  How  do  you 
propose  to  defend  us  ?  "  "  Look  at  my  floating  banner," 
he  would  reply ;  "  see  there  the  Nullifying  Law ! "  "  Is 
it  your  opinion,  gallant  commander,"  they  would  then 

15  say,  "  that,  if  we  should  be  indicted  for  treason,  that  same 
floating  banner  of  yours  would  make  a  good  plea  in 
bar  ?  "  "  South  Carolina  is  a  sovereign  State,"  he  would 
reply.  "That  is  true;  but  would  the  judge  admit  our 
plea?"     "These  tariff  laws,"   he  would  repeat,    "are 

20  unconstitutional,  palpably,  deliberately,  dangerously." 
"  That  all  may  be  so ;  but  if  the  tribunal  should  not 
happen  to  be  of  that  opinion,  shall  we  swing  for  it? 
We  are  ready  to  die  for  our  country,  but  it  is  rather 
an  awkward   business,  this  dying  without  touching  the 

25  ground !  After  all,  that  is  a  sort  of  hemp  tax,  worse 
than  any  part  of  the  tariff." 

Mr.  President,  the  honorable  gentleman  Avould  be  in  a 
dilemma  like  that  of  another  great  general.  He  would 
have  a  knot  before  him  which  he  could  not  untie.     He 

30  must  cut  it  with  his  sword.  He  must  say  to  his  fol- 
lowers, "  Defend  yourselves  with  your  bayonets ! "  And 
this  is  war,  —  civil  war. 

Direct  collision,  therefore,  between  force  and  force  is 
the  unavoidable  result  of  that  remedy  for  the  revision  of 

35  unconstitutional  laws  which  the  gentleman  contends  for. 


Reply  to  Hayne.  247 

It  must  happen  in  the  very  first  case  to  which  it  is 
applied.  Is  not  this  the  plain  result?  To  resist  by 
force  the  execution  of  a  law,  generally  is  treason.  Can 
the  courts  of  the  United  States  take  notice  of  the  indul- 
gence of  a  State  to  commit  treason  ?  The  common  say-  5 
ing,  that  a  State  cannot  commit  treason  herself,  is 
nothing  to  the  purpose.  Can  she  authorize  others  to 
do  it  ?  If  John  Fries  had  produced  an  act  of  Pennsyl- 
vania annulling  the  law  of  Congress,  would  it  have 
helped  his  case  ?  Talk  about  it  as  we  will,  these  doc-  lo 
trines  go  the  length  of  revolution.  They  are  incompati- 
ble with  any  peaceable  administration  of  the  government. 
They  lead  directly  to  disunion  and  civil  commotion ;  and 
therefore  it  is,  that  at  their  commencement,  when  they 
are  first  found  to  be  maintained  by  respectable  men,  and  15 
in  a  tangible  form,  I  enter  my  public  protest  against 
them  all. 

The  honorable  gentleman  argues  that,  if  this  govern- 
ment be  the  sole  judge  of  the  extent  of  its  own  powers, 
whether  that  right  of  judging  be  in  Congress  or  the  20 
Supreme  Court,  it  equally  subverts  State  sovereignty. 
This  the  gentleman  sees,  or  thinks  he  sees,  although  he 
cannot  perceive  how  the  right  of  judging  in  this  matter, 
if  left  to  the  exercise  of  State  legislatures,  has  any  ten- 
dency to  subvert  the  government  of  the  Union.     The  25 
gentleman*s  opinion  may  be  that  the  right  ought  not  to 
have  been  lodged  with  the  general  government ;  he  may 
like  better  such  a  Constitution  as  we  should  have  under 
the  right  of  State  interference ;  but  I  ask  him  to  meet 
me  on  the  plain  matter  of  fact.    I  ask  him  to  meet  me  30 
on  the  Constitution  itself.     I  ask  him  if  the  power  is  not 
found  there  —  clearly  and  visibly  found  there? 

But,  Sir,  what  is  this  danger,  and  what  the  grounds 
of  it?  Let  it  be  remembered  that  the  Constitution  of 
the  United  States  is  not  unaltdrable.     It  is  to  continue  35 


248  Webster, 

in  its  present  form  no  longer  than  the  people  who  estab- 
lished it  shall  choose  to  continue  it.  If  they  shall  become 
convinced  that  they  have  made  an  injudicious  or  inexpe- 
dient partition  and  distribution  of  power  between  the 
n  State  governments  and  the  general  government,  they  can 
alter  that  distribution  at  will. 

If  anything  be  found  in  the  national  Constitution, 
either  by  original  provision  or  subsequent  interpretation, 
which  ought  not  to  be  in  it,  the  people  know  how  to  get 

10  rid  of  it.  If  any  construction  unacceptable  to  them  be 
established,  so  as  to  become  practically  a  part  of  the 
Constitution,  they  will  amend  it  at  their  own  sovereign 
pleasure.  But  while  the  people  choose  to  maintain  it  as 
it  is,  while  they  are  satisfied  with  it,  and  refuse  to  change 

15  it,  who  has  given,  or  who  can  give,  to  the  State  legisla- 
tures a  right  to  alter  it  either  by  interference,  construc- 
tion, or  otherwise  ?  Gentlemen  do  not  seem  to  recollect 
that  the  people  have  any  power  to  do  anything  for  them- 
selves.    They  imagine  there  is  no  safety  for  them,  any 

20  longer  than  they  are  under  the  close  guardianship  of 
the  State  legislatures.  Sir,  the  people  have  not  trusted 
their  safety,  in  regard  to  the  general  Constitution,  to 
these  hands.  They  have  required  other  security,  and 
taken  other  bonds.     They  have  chosen  to  trust  them- 

25  selves,  first,  to  the  plain  words  of  the  instrument,  and  to 
such  construction  as  the  government  itself,  in  doubt- 
ful cases,  should  put  on  its  own  powers,  under  its  oaths 
of  office,  and  subject  to  its  responsibility  to  them ;  just 
as  the  people  of  a  State  trust  their  own  State  govern- 

30  ments  with  a  similar  power.  Secondly,  they  have  re- 
posed their  trust  in  the  efficacy  of  frequent  elections, 
and  in  their  own  power  to  remove  their  own  servants 
and  agents  whenever  they  see  cause.  Thirdly,  they 
have   reposed  trust   in  the    judicial    power,   which,   in 

35  order  that  it  might  be  trustworthy,  they  have  made  as 


Reply  to  Ilayne,  249 

respectable,  as  disinterested,  and  as  independent  as  was 
practicable.  Fourthly,  they  have  seen  fit  to  rely,  in  case 
of  necessity  or  high  expediency,  on  their  known  and 
admitted  power  to  alter  or  amend  the  Constitution  peace- 
ably and  quietly,  whenever  experience  shall  point  out  6 
defects  or  imperfections.  And,  finally,  the  people  of  the 
United  States  have  at  no  time,  in  no  way,  directly  or 
indirectly,  authorized  any  State  legislature  to  construe 
or  interpret  their  high  instrument  of  government ;  much 
less  to  interfere  by  their  own  power  to  arrest  its  course  lo 
and  operation. 

If,  Sir,  the  people  in  these  respects  had  done  otherwise 
than  they  have  done,  their  Constitution  could  neither  have 
been  preserved,  nor  would  it  have  been  worth  preserving. 
And  if  its  plain  provisions  shall  now  be  disregarded,  and  15 
these  new  doctrines  interpolated  in  it,  it  will  become  as 
feeble  and  helpless  a  being  as  its  enemies,  whether  early 
or  more  recent,  could  possibly  desire.  It  will  exist  in 
every  State  but  as  a  poor  dependant  on  State  permission. 
It  must  borrow  leave  to  be ;  and  will  be  no  longer  than  20 
State  pleasure,  or  State  discretion,  sees  fit  to  grant  the 
indulgence  and  to  prolong  its  poor  existence. 

But,  Sir,  although  there  are  fears,  there  are  hopes  also. 
The  people  have  preserved  this,  their  own  chosen  Con- 
stitution, for  forty  years,  and  have  seen  their  happi-  25 
ness,  prosi)erity,  and  renown  grow  with  its  growth,  and 
strengthen  with  its  strength.  They  are  now,  generally, 
strongly  attached  to  it.  Overthrown  by  direct  assault,  it 
cannot  be ;  evaded,  undermined,  nullified,  it  will  not  be, 
if  we,  and  those  who  shall  succeed  us  here  as  agents  ao 
and  representatives  of  the  people,  shall  conscientiously 
and  vigilantly  discharge  the  two  great  brandies  of 
our  public  trust,  faitlifuUy  to  preserve,  and  wisely  to 
administer  it. 

Mr.  President,  I  have  thus  stated  the  reasons  of  my  35 


250  Webster. 

dissent  to  the  doctrines  which  have  been  advanced  and 
maintained.  I  am  conscious  of  having  detained  you  and 
the  Senate  much  too  long.  I  was  drawn  into  the  debate 
with  no  previous  deliberation  such  as  is  suited  to  the 
6  discussion  of  so  grave  and  important  a  subject.  But  it 
is  a  subject  of  which  my  heart  is  full,  and  I  have  not 
been  willing  to  suppress  the  utterance  of  its  spontaneous 
sentiments.  I  cannot,  even  now,  persuade  myself  to 
relinquish   it   without  expressing  once   more   my  deep 

10  conviction  that,  since  it  respects  nothing  less  than  the 
Union  of  the  States,  it  is  of  most  vital  and  essential 
importance  to  the  public  happiness.  I  profess.  Sir,  in 
my  career  hitherto  to  have  kept  steadily  in  view  the 
prosperity  and  honor  of  the  whole  country,  and  the  pres- 

15  ervation  of  our  Federal  Union.  It  is  to  that  Union  we 
owe  our  safety  at  home,  and  our  consideration  and  dig- 
nity abroad.  It  is  to  that  Union  that  we  are  chiefly 
indebted  for  whatever  makes  us  most  proud  of  our  coun- 
try.    That  Union  we  reached  only  by  the  discipline  of 

20  our  virtues  in  the  severe  school  of  adversity.  It  had  its 
origin  in  the  necessities  of  disordered  finance,  prostrate 
commerce,  and  ruined  credit.  Under  its  benign  influ- 
ences, these  great  interests  immediately  awoke  as  from 
the  dead,  and  sprang  forth  with  newness  of  life.     Every 

25  year  of  its  duration  has  teemed  with  fresh  proofs  of  its 
utility  and  its  blessings ;  and  although  our  territory  has 
stretched  out  wider  and  wider,  and  our  population  spread 
farther  and  farther,  they  have  not  outrun  its  protection 
or  its  benefits.     It  has  been  to  us  all  a  copious  fountain 

30  of  national,  social,  and  personal  happiness. 

I  have  not  allowed  myself,  Sir,  to  look  beyond  the 
Union  to  see  what  might  lie  hidden  in  the  dark  recess 
behind.  I  have  not  coolly  weighed  the  chances  of  pre- 
serving liberty,  when  the  bonds  that  unite  us  together 

35  shall  be  broken  asunder.     I  have  not  accustomed  mjself 


Reply  to  Hayne,  261 

to  hang  over  the  precipice  of  disunion,  to  see  whether, 
with  my  short  sight,  I  can  fathom  the  depth  of  the  abyss 
below;  nor  could  I  regard  him  as  a  safe  counsellor  in  the 
affairs  of  this  government,  whose  thoughts  should  be 
mainly  bent  on  considering,  not  how  the  Union  should  5 
be  best  preserved,  but  how  tolerable  might  be  the  condi- 
tion of  the  people  when  it  should  be  broken  up  and 
destroyed.  While  the  Union  lasts,  we  have  high,  excit- 
ing, gratifying  prospects  spread  out  before  us,  —  for  us  and 
our  children.  Beyond  that,  I  seek  not  to  penetrate  the  lO 
veil.  God  grant  that,  in  my  day,  at  least,  that  curtain 
may  not  rise !  God  grant  that  on  my  vision  never  may 
be  opened  what  lies  behind!  Wlien  my  eyes  shall  be 
turned  to  behold  for  the  last  time  the  sun  in  heaven, 
may  I  not  see  him  shining  on  the  broken  and  dishonored  15 
fragments  of  a  once  glorious  Union;  on  States  dissev- 
ered, discordant,  l)elligerent ;  on  a  land  rent  with  civil 
feuds,  or  drenched,  it  may  be,  in  fraternal  blood !  Let 
their  last  feeble  and  lingering  glance  rather  behold  the 
gorgeous  ensign  of  the  Republic,  now  known  and  lion-  20 
ored  throughout  the  earth,  still  full  high  advanced,  its 
arms  and  trophies  streaming  in  their  original  lustre,  not 
a  stripe  erased  or  polluted,  nor  a  single  star  obscured ; 
bearing  for  its  motto,  no  such  miserable  interrogatory  as 
"  What  is  all  this  worth  ? "  nor  those  other  words  of  25 
delusion  and  folly,  "  Liberty  first,  and  Union  after- 
wards ; "  but  everywhere,  spread  all  over  in  characters  of 
living  light,  blazing  on  all  its  ample  folds,  as  they  float 
over  the  sea  and  over  the  land  and  in  every  wind  under 
the  whole  heavens,  that  other  sentiment,  dear  to  every  30 
true  American  heart,  —  Liberty  and  Union,  now  and  for- 
ever, one  and  inseparable ! 


LORD  MACAULAY. 


ON  THE  REFORM  BILL;  HOUSE  OF  OOMMONS.  MARCH  2,  1831. 


It  is  a  circumstance,  Sir,  of  happy  augiiry  for  the 
motion  before  the  House,  that  almost  all  those  who  have 
opposed  it  have  declared  themselves  hostile  on  principle 
to  Parliamentary  Reform.     Two  members,  I  think,  have 

5  confessed  that,  though  they  disapprove  of  the  plan  now— 
submitted  to  us,  they  are  forced  to  admit  the  necessity 
of  a  change  in  the  representative  system.     Yet  even 
those  gentlemen  have  used,  as  far  as  I  have  observed,  no 
arguments  which  would  not  apply  as  strongly  to  the  most 

10  moderate  change  as  to  that  which  has  l^een  proposed  by 
His  Majesty's  Government.  I  say.  Sir,  that  I  consider 
this  as  a  circumstance  of  happy  augury.  For  what  I 
feared  was,  not  the  opposition  of  those  who  are  averse 
to  all  reform,  but  the  disunion  of  reformers.     I  knew 

15  that,  during  three  months,  every  reformer  liad  been 
employed  in  conjecturing  what  the  plan  of  the  Govern- 
ment would  be.  I  knew  that  every  reformer  had  im- 
agined in  his  own  mind  a  scheme  differing,  doubtless,  in 
some  points  from  that  which  my  noble  friend,  the  Pay- 

20  master  of  the  Forces,  has  developed.  I  felt,  therefore, 
great  apprehension  that  one  person  would  be  dissatisfied 
with  one  part  of  the  bill,  that  another  person  would  be 

252 


On  the  Reform  Bill,  25o 

dissatisfied  with  another  part,  and  that  thus  our  whole 
strengtli  would  be  wasted  in  internal  dissensions.  That 
apprehension  is  now  at  an  end.  I  have  seen  with  delight 
the  i)erfect  concord  wliich  prevails  among  all  wlio  deserve 
the  name  of  reformers  in  this  House ;  and  I  trust  that  I  5 
may  consider  it  as  an  omen  of  the  concord  which  will  pre- 
vail among  reformers  throughout  the  country.  I  will  not, 
Sir,  at  present  express  any  opinion  as  to  the  details  of 
the  bill ;  but,  having  during  the  last  twenty -four  hours 
given  the  most  diligent  consideration  to  its  general  prin- 10 
ciples,  I  have  no  hesitation  in  pronouncing  it  a  wise, 
noble,  and  comprehensive  measure,  skilfully  framed  for 
the  healing  of  great  distempers,  for  the  securing  at  once 
of  the  public  liberties  and  of  the  public  repose,  and  for 
the  reconciling  and  knitting  together  of  all  the  orders  of  15 
the  State. 

The  honorable  Baronet  who  has  just  sat  down,  has 
told  us  that  the  Ministers  have  attempted  to  unite  two 
inconsistent  principles  in  one  abortive  measure.  Those 
were  his  very  words.  He  thinks,  if  I  understand  him  20 
rightly,  that  we  ought  either  to  leave  the  representiitive 
system  such  as  it  is,  or  to  make  it  perfectly  symmetrical. 
I  think.  Sir,  that  the  Ministers  would  have  acted  un- 
wisely if  they  had  taken  either  course.  Their  principle 
is  plain,  rational,  and  consistent.  It  is  this,  to  a*lmit  the  25 
middle  class  to  a  large  and  direct  share  in  the  represen- 
tation, without  any  violent  shock  to  the  institutions  of 
our  country.  I  understand  those  cheers ;  but  surely  the 
gentlemen  who  utter  them  will  allow  that  the  change 
which  will  be  made  in  our  institutions  by  this  bill  is  far  30 
less  violent  than  that  which,  according  to  the  honorable 
Haronet,  ought  to  be  made  if  we  make  any  reform  at 
all.  I  praise  the  Ministers  for  not  attempting,  at  the 
present  time,  to  make  the  representation  uniform.  I 
]>rais('  tlicm  for  not  cffaciii^'  tlic  old  distinction  In'twccn  :» 


264  Lord  Macaulay. 

the  towns  and  the  counties,  and  for  not  assigning  mem-* 
bers  to  districts,  according  to  the  American  practice,  by 
the  Rule  of  Three.  The  Government  has,  in  my  opinion, 
done  all  that  was  necessary  for  the  removal  of  a  great 

6  practical  evil,  and  no  more  than  was  necessary. 

I  consider  this.  Sir,  as  a  practical  question.  I  rest  my 
opinion  on  no  general  theory  of  government.  I  distrust 
all  general  theories  of  government.  I  will  not  positively 
say,  that  there  is  any  form  of  polity  which  may  not,  in 

10  some  conceivable  circumstances,  be  the  best  possible.  I 
believe  that  there  are  societies  in  which  every  man  may 
safely  be  admitted  to  vote.  Gentlemen  may  cheer,  but 
such  is  my  opinion.  I  say,  Sir,  that  there  are  countries 
in  which  the  condition  of  the  lalwring  classes  is  such 

15  that  they  may  safely  be  entrusted  with  the  right  of 
electing  members  of  the  Legislature.  If  the  laborers  of 
England  were  in  that  state  in  which  I,  from  my  soul,  wish 
to  see  them ;  if  employment  were  always  plentiful,  wages 
always  high,  food  always  cheap ;  if  a  large  family  were 

20  considered  not  as  an  encumbi*ance  but  as  a  blessing;  the 
principal  objections  to  universal  suffrage  would,  I  think, 
be  removed.  Universal  suffrage  exists  in  the  United 
States  without  producing  any  very  frightful  consequences ; 
and  I  do  not  believe  that  the  people  of  those  States,  or  of 

25  any  part  of  the  world,  are  in  any  good  quality  naturally 
superior  to  our  own  countrymen.  But,  unhappily,  the 
laboring  classes  in  England,  and  in  all  old  countries,  are 
occasionally  in  a  state  of  great  distress.  Some  of  the 
causes  of  this  distress  are,  I  fear,  beyond  the  control  of 

30  the  Government.  We  know  what  effect  distress  pro- 
duces, even  on  people  more  intelligent  than  the  great 
body  of  the  laboring  classes  can  possibly  be.  We  know 
that  it  makes  even  wise  men  irritable,  unreasonable, 
credulous,  eager  for  immediate  relief,  heedless  of  remote 

35  consequences.     There  is  no  quackery  in  medicine,  reli- 


On  the  Reform  Bill  255 

ijion,  or  politics,  which  may  not  impose  even  on  a  power- 
ful mind,  when  that  mind  has  been  disordered  by  pain  or 
fear.  It  is  therefore  no  reflection  on  the  poorer  class  of 
Englishmen,  who  are  not,  and  who  cannot  in  the  nature 
of  things  be,  highly  educated,  to  say  that  distress  pro-  6 
duces  on  them  its  natural  effects,  those  effects  which  it 
would  produce  on  the  Americans,  or  on  any  other  peo- 
ple ;  that  it  blinds  their  judgment,  that  it  inflames  their 
passions,  that  it  makes  them  prone  to  believe  those  who 
flatter  them,  and  to  distrust  those  who  would  serve  them,  lo 
For  the  sake,  therefore,  of  the  whole  society,  for  the 
sake  of  the  laboring  classes  themselves,  I  hold  it  to  be 
clearly  expedient  that,  in  a  country  like  this,  the  right  of 
suffrage  should  depend  on  a  pecuniary  qualiflcation. 

But,  Sir,  every  argument  which  would  induce  me  to  15 
oppose  universal  suffrage  induces  me  to  support  the  plan 
which  is  now  before  us.  I  am  opposed  to  universal 
suffrage,  because  I  think  that  it  would  produce  a  de- 
structive revolution.  I  support  this  plan,  because  I  am 
sure  that  it  is  our  best  security  against  a  revolution.  20 
The  noble  Paymaster  of  the  Forces  hinted,  delicately 
indeed  and  remotely,  at  this  subject.  He  spoke  of  the 
danger  of  disappointing  the  expectations  of  the  nation ; 
and  for  this  he  was  charged  with  threatening  the  House. 
Sir,  in  the  year  1817,  the  late  Lord  Londonderry  pro- 25 
posed  a  suspension  of  the  Habeas  Corpus  Act  On  that 
occasion  he  told  the  House  that,  unless  the  measures 
which  he  recommended  were  adopted,  the  public  peace 
could  not  be  preserved.  Was  he  accused  of  threatening 
the  House  ?  Again,  in  the  year  1819,  he  proposed  the  30 
laws  known  by  the  name  of  the  Six  Acts.  He  then  told 
the  House  that,  unless  the  executive  power  were  rein- 
forced, all  the  institutions  of  the  country  would  be  over- 
turned by  jx)pular  violence.  Was  he  then  accused  of 
threatening  the  House  ?    Will  any  gentleman  say  that  35 


256  Lord  Macanlay. 

it  is  parliamentary  and  decorous  to  urge  the  danger 
arising  from  popular  discontent  as  an  argument  for 
severity ;  but  that  it  is  unparliamentary  and  indecorous 
to  urge  that  same  danger  as  an  argument  for  conciliar 

5  tion  ?  I,  Sir,  do  entertain  great  apprehension  for  the 
fate  of  my  country.  I  do  in  my  conscience  believe 
that,  unless  the  plan  proposed,  or  some  similar  plan,  be 
speedily  adopted,  great  and  terrible  calamities  will  befall 
us.     Entertaining  this  opinion,  I  think  myself  bound  to 

10  state  it,  not  as  a  threat,  but  as  a  reason.  I  support  this 
bill  because  it  will  improve  our  institutions ;  but  I  sup- 
port it  also  because  it  tends  to  preserve  them.  That  we 
may  exclude  those  whom  it  is  necessary  to  exclude,  we 
must  admit  those  whom  it  may  be  safe  to  admit     At 

15  present  we  oppose  the  schemes  of  revolutionists  with 
only  one  half,  with  only  one  quarter,  of  our  proper  force. 
We  say,  and  we  say  justly,  that  it  is  not  by  mere  num- 
bers, but  by  property  and  intelligence,  that  the  nation 
ought  to  be  governed.     Yet,  saying  this,  we  exclude  from 

20  all  share  in  the  government  great  masses  of  property 
and  intelligence,  great  numbers  of  those  who  are  most 
interested  in  preserving  tranquillity,  and  who  know  best 
how  to  preserve  it.  We  do  more.  We  drive  over  to  the 
side  of  revolution  those  whom  we  shut  out  from  power. 

25  Is  this  a  time  when  the  cause  of  law  and  order  can  spare 
one  of  its  natural  allies  ? 

My  noble  friend,  the  Paymaster  of  the  Forces,  happily 
described  the  effect  which  some  parts  of  our  representa- 
tive system  would  produce  on  the  mind  of  a  foreigner, 

30  who  had  heard  much  of  our  freedom  and  greatness.  If, 
Sir,  I  wished  to  make  such  a  foreigner  clearly  understand 
what  I  consider  as  the  great  defects  of  our  system,  I  would 
conduct  liim  through  that  immense  city  which  lies  to  the 
north  of  Great  Russell  Street  and  Oxford  Street,  a  city 

35  superior  in  size  and  in  population  to  the  capitals  of  many 


On  the  Reform  Bill  257 

mighty  kingdoms ;  and  probably  superior  in  opulence, 
intoUigence,  and  general  respectability,  to  any  city  in  the 
world.  I  would  conduct  him  through  that  interminable 
succession  of  streets  and  squares,  all  consisting  of  well 
built  and  well  furnished  houses.  I  would  make  him  5 
observe  the  brilliancy  of  the  shops  and  the  crowd  of 
well-appointed  equipages.  I  would  show  him  that  mag- 
nificent circle  of  palaces  which  surrounds  the  Regent's 
Park.  I  would  tell  him  that  the  rental  of  this  district 
was  far  greater  than  that  of  the  whole  kingdom  of  Scot- 10 
land  at  the  time  of  the  Union.  And  then  I  would  tell 
him,  that  this  was  an  unrepresented  district.  It  is  need- 
less to  give  any  more  instances.  It  is  needless  to  speak 
of  Manchester,  Birmingham,  Leeds,  Sheffield,  with  no 
representation,  or  of  ^Edinburgh  and  Glasgow  with  a  16 
mock  representation.  If  a  property  tax  were  now  im- 
posed on  the  principle  that  no  person  who  had  less  than 
a  hundred  and  fifty  pounds  a  year  should  contribute,  I 
should  not  be  surprised  to  find  that  one  half  in  number 
and  value  of  the  contributors  had  no  votes  at  all ;  and  it  20 
would,  beyond  all  doubt,  be  found  that  one  fiftieth  part 
in  number  and  value  of  the  contributors  had  a  larger 
share  of  the  representation  than  the  other  forty-nine 
fiftieths.  This  is  not  government  by  property.  It  is 
government  by  certain  detached  portions  and  fragments  26 
of  property,  selected  from  the  rest,  and  preferred  to  the 
rest,  on  no  rational  principle  whatever. 

say  that  such  a  system  is  ancient  is  no  defence. 
My  honorable  friend,  the  member  for  tlie  University  of 
Oxford,  challenges  us  to  show  that  the  Constitution  was  30 
ever  better  than  it  is.  Sir,  we  are  legislators,  not  anti- 
quaries. The  question  for  us  is,  not  whether  the  Consti- 
tution was  better  formerly,  but  whether  we  can  make 
it  better  now.  In  fact,  however,  the  system  was  not  in 
ancient  times  by  any  means  so  absurd  as  it  is  in  our  age.  36 


258  Lord  Macaulay, 

One  noble  lord  has  to-night  told  us  that  the  town  of 
Aldborough,  which  he  represents,  was  not  larger  in  the 
time  of  Edward  the  First  than  it  is  at  present.  The  line 
of  its  walls,  he  assures  us,  may  still  be  traced.  It  is 
5  now  built  up  to  that  line.  He  argues,  therefore,  that  as 
the  founders  of  our  representative  institutions  gave  mem- 
bers to  Aldborough  when  it  was  as  small  as  it  now  is, 
those  who  would  disfranchise  it  on  account  of  its  small- 
ness  have  no  right  to  say  that  they  are  recurring  to  the 

10  original  principle  of  our  representative  institutions.  But 
does  tlie  noble  lord  remember  the  change  which  has 
taken  place  in  the  country  during  the  last  five  centuries  ? 
Does  he  remember  how  much  England  has  grown  in 
population,  while  Aldborough  has  been  standing  still  ? 

15  Does  he  consider,  that  in  the  time  of  Edward  the  First 
the  kingdom  did  not  contain  two  millions  of  inhabit- 
ants? It  now  contains  nearly  fourteen  millions.  A 
hamlet  of  the  present  day  would  have  been  a  town  of 
some  importance  in  the  time  of  our  early  Parliaments. 

20  Aldborough  may  be  absolutely  as  considerable  a  place  as 
ever.  But,  compared  with  the  kingdom,  it  is  much  less 
considerable,  by  the  noble  lord's  own  showing,  tlian  when 
it  first  elected  burgesses.  My  honorable  friend,  the 
member  for  the   University   of  Oxford,   has    collected 

25  numerous  instances  of  the  tyranny  which  the  kings  and 
nobles  anciently  exercised  both  over  this  House  and 
over  the  electors.  It  is  not  strange  that,  in  times  when 
nothing  was  held  sacred,  the  rights  of  the  people,  and  of 
the  representatives  of  the  people,  should  not  have  been 

30  held  sacred.  The  proceedings  which  my  honorable  friend 
has  mentioned  no  more  prove  that,  by  the  ancient  consti- 
tution of  the  realm,  this  House  ought  to  be  a  tool  of  the 
king  and  of  the  aristocracy,  than  the  Benevolences  and 
tlie  Shipmoney  prove  their  own  legality,  or  than  those 

35  unjustifiable   arrests,  which  took  place  long  after  the 


On  the  Reform  Bill  259 

ratification  of  the  Great  Charter,  and  even  after  the 
Petition  of  Right,  prove  that  the  subject  was  not 
anciently  entitled  to  his  personal  liberty.  We  talk  of 
the  wisdom  of  our  ancestors ;  and  in  one  respect  at  least 
they  were  wiser  than  we.  They  legislated  for  their  own  5 
times.  They  looked  at  the  England  which  was  before 
them.  They  did  not  think  it  necessary  to  give  twice  as 
many  members  to  York  as  they  gave  to  London,  because 
York  had  been  the  capital  of  Britain  in  the  time  of 
Constantius  Chlorus ;  and  they  would  have  been  amazed  lo 
indeed  if  they  had  foreseen  that  a  city  of  more  than 
a  hundred  thousand  inhabitants  would  be  left  without 
representatives  in  the  nineteenth  century,  merely  because 
it  stood  on  ground  which,  in  the  thirteenth  century,  had 
been  occupied  by  a  few  huts.  They  framed  a  represen- 16 
tative  system,  which,  though  not  without  defects  and 
irregidarities,  was  well  adapted  to  the  state  of  England 
in  their  time.  But  a  great  revolution  took  place.  The 
character  of  the  old  corporations  changed.  New  forms 
of  proi)erty  came  into  existence.  New  portions  of  so-  20 
ciety  rose  into  importance.  There  were  in  our  rural  dis- 
tricts rich  cultivators,  who  were  not  freeholders.  There 
were  in  our  capital  rich  traders,  who  were  not  livery- 
men. Towns  shrank  into  villages.  Villages  swelled 
into  cities  larger  than  the  London  of  the  Plantagenets.  25 
Unhappily,  while  the  natural  growth  of  society  went 
on,  the  artificial  polity  continued  unchanged.  The  an- 
cient form  of  the  representation  remained ;  and  pre- 
cisely because  the  form  remained,  the  spirit  departed. 
Then  came  that  pressure  almost  to  bursting,  the  new  30 
wine  in  the  old  lK)ttles,  the  new  society  under  the  old 
institutions.  It  is  now  time  for  us  to  pay  a  decent,  a 
rational,  a  manly  reverence  to  our  ancestors,  not  by 
superstitiously  adhering  to  what  they,  in  other  circum- 
stances, did,  but  by  doing  what  they,  in  our  circumstances,  35 


260  Lord  Macaulay, 

would  have  done.  All  history  is  full  of  revolutions,  pro- 
duced by  causes  similar  to  those  wliich  are  now  oi)erating 
in  England.  A  portion  of  the  community  which  had 
been  of  no  account,  expands  and  becomes  strong.     It 

5  demands  a  place  in  the  system,  suited,  not  to  its  former 
weakness,  but  to  its  present  power.  If  this  is  granted, 
all  is  well.  If  this  is  refused,  then  comes  the  struggle 
between  the  youn^  energy  of  one  class  and  the  ancient 
l)rivileges  of  another.     Such  was  the  struggle  between 

10  the  Plebeians  and  the  Patridans  of  Rome.  Such  was 
the  sti-uggle  of  the  It^an  allies  for  admission  to  the  full 
rights  of  Romaii  citizens.  Such  was  the  struggle  of  our 
North  American  colonies  against  the  mother  country. 
Such  was  the  struggle  which  the  Third  Estate  of  France 

15  maintained  against  the  aristocracy  of  birth.  Such  was 
the  struggle  which  the  Roman  Catholics  of  Ireland 
maintained  against  the  aristocracy  of  creed.  Such  is 
tlie  struggle  which  the  free  people  of  color  in  Jamaica 
are  now  maintaining  against  the  aristocracy  of  skin. 

20  Such,  finally,  is  the  struggle  which  the  middle  classes 
in  England  are  maintaining  against  an  aristocracy  of 
mere  locality,  against  an  aristocracy,  the  principle  of 
which  is  to  invest  a  hundred  drunken  potwallopers  in 
one  place,  or  the  owner  of  a  ruined  hovel  in  another, 

25  with  powers  which  are  withheld  from  cities  renowned  to 
the  furthest  ends  of  the  earth  for  the  marvels  of  their 
wealth  and  of  their  industry. 

But  these  great  cities,  says  my  honorable  friend,  the 
member   for  the   University  of   Oxford,   are   virtually, 

30  though  not  directly,  represented.  Are  not  the  wishes 
of  Manchester,  he  asks,  as  much  consulted  as  those  of 
any  town  wliich  sends  members  to  Parliament  ?  Now, 
Sir,  I  do  not  understand  how  a  power  which  is  salutary 
when  exercised  virtually,  can  be  noxious  when  exercised 

35  directly.     If  the  wishes  of  Manchester  have  as  much 


On  tJte  Reform  Bill.  261 

weiglit  with  us  as  they  would  have  under  a  system  which 
should  give  representatives  to  Manchester,  how  can  there 
be  any  danger  in  giving  representatives  to  Manchester  ? 
A  virtual  representative  is,  I  presume,  a  man  who  acts 
as  a  direct  representative  would  act ;  for  surely  it  would  5 
be  absurd  to  say  that  a  man  virtually  represents  the  peo- 
ple of  Manchester,  who  is  in  the  habit  of  saying  No, 
when  a  man  directly  representing  the  people  of  Man- 
chester would  say  Aye.     The  utmost  that  can  be  ex- 
pected from  virtual  representation  is,  that  it  may  be  as  lo 
good  as  direct  representation.     If  so,  why  not  gi-ant  direct 
representation   to   places   which,   as   everybody  allows, 
ought,  by  some  process  or  other,  to  be  represented  ? 
^    If  it  be  said  that  there  is  an  evil  in  change  aa  change, 
I  answer  that  there  is  also  an  evil  in  discontent  as  dis- 15 
content.     This,  indeed,  is  the  strongest  part  of  our  case. 
It  is  said  that  the  system  works  well.    I  deny  it.    I  deny 
that  a  system  works  well,  which  the  people  regard  with 
aversion.     We  may  say  here  that  it  is  a  good  system  and 
a  perfect  system.     But  if  any  man  were  to  say  so  to  any  20 
six  hundred  and  fifty-eight  respectable  farmers  or  shop- 
keei)ers,  chosen  by  lot  in  any  part  of  England,  he  would 
be  hooted  down,  and  laughed  to  scorn.     Are  these  the 
feelings  with  which  any  part  of  the  government  ought 
to  be  regarded  ?    Above  all,  are  these  the  feelings  with  25 
which  the  popular  branch  of  the  legislature  ought  to  be 
regarded  ?     It  is  almost  as  essential  to  the  utility  of  a 
House  of  Commons  that  it  should  possess  the  confidence 
of  the  people,  as  that  it  should  deserve  that  confidence. 
Unfortunately,  that  wliich  is  in  theory  the  popiUar  part  30 
of  our  government,  is  in  practice  the  unpopular  part. 
Who  wishes  to  dethrone  the  king  ?     Who  wishes  to  turn 
the  Lords  out  of  their  House  ?     Here  and  there  a  crazy 
radical,  whom  the  boys  in  the  street  point  at  as  he  walks 
along.     Who  wishes  to  alter  the  constitution  of  tliis  35 


2G2  Lord  Macaulaij, 

House  ?  The  whole  people.  It  is  natural  that  it  should 
be  so.  The  House  of  Commons  is,  in  the  language  of 
Mr.  Burke,  a  check,  not  on  the  people,  but  for  the  peo- 
ple.    While  that  check  is  efficient,  there  is  no  reason  to 

5  fear  that  the  king  or  the  nobles  will  oppress  the  people. 
But  if  that  check  requires  checking,  how  is  it  to  be 
checked?  If  the  salt  shall  lose  its  savor,  wherewith 
shall  we  season  it  ?  The  distrust  with  which  the  nation 
regards  this  House  may  be  unjust.     But  wliat  then  ? 

10  Can  you  remove  that  distrust  ?  That  it  exists  cannot  be 
denied.  That  it  is  an  evil  cannot  be  denied.  That  it  is 
an  increasing  evil  cannot  be  denied.  One  gentleman  tells 
us  that  it  has  been  produced  by  the  late  events  in  France 
and  Belgium ;  another,  that  it  is  the  effect  of  seditious 

15  works  which  have  lately  been  published.  If  tliis  feeling 
be  of  origin  so  recent,  I  have  read  history  to  little  pur- 
pose. Sir,  this  alarming  discontent  is  not  the  growth  of 
a  day,  or  of  a  year.  If  there  be  any  symptoms  by  which 
it  is  possible  to  distinguish  the  chronic  diseases  of  the 

20  body  politic  from  its  passing  inflammations,  all  those 
symptoms  exist  in  the  present  case.  The  taint  has  been 
gradually  becoming  more  extensive  and  more  malignant, 
through  the  whole  lifetime  of  two  generations.  We  have 
tried  anodynes.     We  have  tried  cruel  operations.     What 

25  are  we  to  try  now  ?  Who  flatters  himself  that  he  can 
turn  this  feeling  back?  Does  there  remain  any  argu- 
ment wliich  escaped  the  comprehensive  intellect  of  Mr. 
Burke,  or  the  subtlety  of  Mr.  Windhani  ?  Does  there 
remain  any  species  of  coercion  which  was  not  tried  by 

30  Mr^  Pitt  and  by  Lord  Londonderry  ?  We  have  had  laws. 
We  have  had  blood.  New  treasons  have  been  created. 
The  press  has  been  shackled.  The  Habeas  Corpus  Act 
has  been  suspended.  Public  meetings  have  been  pro- 
liibited.     The  event  has  proved  that  these  expedients 

35  were  mere  palliatives.     You  are  at   the  end  of  your 


On  the  Reform  Bill  268 

palliatives.    The  evil  remains.     It  is  more  formidable 
than  ever.    What  is  to  be  done? 

Under  such  circumstances,  a  great  plan  of  reconcilia- 
tion, prepared  by  the  Ministers  of  the  Crown,  has  been 
brought  before  us  in  a  manner  which  gives  additional  5 
lustre  to  a  noble  name  inseparably  associated  during  two 
centuries  with  the  dearest  liberties  of  the  English  peo- 
ple.    I  will  not  say  that  this  plan  is  in  all  its  details 
precisely  such  as  I  might  wish  it  to  be ;  but  it  is  founded 
on  a  great  and  a  sound  principle.    It  takes  away  a  vast  lo 
power  from  a  few.     It  distributes  that  power  through 
the  great  mass  of  the  middle  order.     Every  man,  there- 
fore, who  thinks  as  I  think,  is  bound  to  stand  firmly  by 
Ministers  who  are  resolved  to  stand  or  fall  with  this 
measure.     Were  I  one  of  them,  I  would  sooner,  infinitely  15 
sooner,  fall  with  such  a  measure  than  stand  by  any  other 
means  that  ever  supported  a  Cabinet. 

My  honorable  friend,  the  member  for  the  University 
of  Oxford,  tells  us,  that  if  we  pass  this  law,  England  will 
soon  be  a  republic.  The  reformed  House  of  Commons  20 
will,  according  to  him,  before  it  has  sat  ten  years,  depose 
the  King  and  exi>el  the  Lords  from  their  House.  Sir, 
if  my  honorable  friend  could  prove  this,  he  would  have 
succeeded  in  bringing  an  argument  for  democracy  infin- 
itely stronger  than  any  that  is  to  be  found  in  the  works  25 
of  Paine.  My  honorable  friend's  proposition  is  in  fact 
this  :  that  our  monarchical  and  aristocratical  institutions 
have  no  hold  on  the  ])ublic  mind  of  England ;  that  these 
institutions  are  regarded  with  aversion  by  a  decided 
majority  of  the  middle  class.  This,  Sir,  I  say,  is  plainly  30 
deducible  from  his  proposition ;  for  he  tells  us  that  the 
representatives  of  the  middle  class  will  inevitably  abolish 
royalty  and  nobility  within  ten  years ;  and  there  is  surely 
no  reason  to  think  that  the  representatives  of  the  middle 
class  will  be  more  inclined  to  a  democratic  revolution  3S 


264  Lord  Macaulay, 

than  their  constituents.  Now,  Sir,  if  I  were  convinced 
that  the  great  body  of  the  middle  class  in  England  look 
with  aversion  on  monarchy  and  aristocracy,  I  should  be 
forced,  much  against  my  will,  to  come  to  this  conclusion, 
5  that  monarchical  and  aristocratical  institutions  are  un- 
suited  to  my  country.  Monarchy  and  aristocracy,  valuable 
and  useful  as  I  think  them,  are  still  valuable  and  useful 
as  means,  and  not  as  ends.  The  end  of  government  is 
the  happiness  of  the  people  ;  and  I  do  not  conceive  that, 

10  in  a  country  like  this,  the  happiness  of  the  people  can  be 
promoted  by  a  form  of  government  in  which  the  middle 
classes  place  no  confidence,  and  which  exists  only  because 
the  middle  classes  have  no  organ  by  which  to  make  tlieir 
sentiments  known.     But,  Sir,  I  am  fully  convinced  that 

15  the  middle  classes  sincerely  wish  to  uphold  the  royal 
prerogatives  and  the  constitutional  rights  of  the  peers. 
AVhat  facts  does  my  honorable  friend  produce  in  support 
of  his  opinion  ?  One  fact  only,  and  that  a  fact  which 
has  absolutely  nothing  to  do  with  the  question.     The 

20  effect  of  this  Reform,  he  tells  us,  would  be  to  make  the 
House  of  Commons  all  powerful.  It  was  all  powerful 
once  before,  in  the  begimiing  of  1649.  Then  it  cut  off 
the  head  of  the  King,  and  abolished  the  House  of^  Peers. 
Therefore,  if  it  again  has  the  supreme  power,  it  will  act 

25  in  the  same  manner.  Now,  Sir,  it  was  not  the  House  of 
Commons  that  cut  off  the  head  of  Charles  the  First ;  nor 
was  the  House  of  Commons  then  all  jwwerful.  It  had 
been  greatly  reduced  in  numbers  by  successive  expul- 
sions.    It  was  under  the  absolute  dominion  of  the  army. 

30  A  majority  of  the  House  was  willing  to  take  the  terms 
offered  by  the  King.  The  soldiers  turned  out  the  majority ; 
and  the  minority,  not  a  sixth  part  of  the  whole  House, 
passed  those  votes  of  which  my  honorable  friend  speaks, 
votes  of  which  the  middle  classes  disapproved  then,  and 

36  of  which  tliey  disapprove  still. 


On  the  Reform  Bill  266 

My  honorable  friend,  and  almost  all  the  gentlemen 
who  have  taken  the  same  side  with  liim  in  this  debate, 
have  dwelt  much  on  the  utility  of  close  and  rotten 
boroughs.  It  is  by  means  of  Such  boroughs,  they  tell  us, 
that  the  ablest  men  have  been  introduced  into  l*arlia-  5 
ment.  It  is  true  that  many  distinguished  persons  have 
represented  places  of  this  description.  But,  Sir,  we  must 
judge  of  a  form  of  government  by  its  general  tendency, 
not  by  happy  accidents.  Every  form  of  government  has 
its  happy  accidents.  Despotism  has  its  happy  accidents,  lo 
Yet  we  are  not  disposed  to  abolish  all  constitutional 
checks,  to  place  an  absolute  master  over  us,  and  to  take 
our  chance  whether  he  may  be  a  Caligula  or  a  Marcus 
Aurelius.  In  whatever  way  the  House  of  Commons  may 
be  chosen,  some  able  men  will  be  chosen  in  that  way  who  15 
would  not  be  chosen  in  any  other  way.  If  there  were  a 
law  that  the  hundred  tallest  men  in  England  should  be 
members  of  Parliament,  there  would  probably  be  some 
able  men  among  those  who  would  come  into  the  House 
by  virtue  of  this  law.  If  the  hundred  persons  whose  20 
names  stand  first  in  the  alpliabetical  list  of  the  Court 
Guide  were  made  members  of  Parliament,  there  would 
probably  be  able  men  among  them.  We  read  in  ancient 
history  that  a  very  able  king  was  elected  by  the  neighing 
of  his  horse ;  but  we  shall  scarcely,  I  think,  adopt  this  25 
mode  of  election.  In  one  of  the  most  celebrated  repub- 
lics of  antiquity,  Athens,  Senators  and  Magistrates  were 
chosen  by  lot;  and  sometimes  the  lot  fell  fortunately. 
Once,  for  example,  Socrates  was  in  office.  A  cruel  and 
unjust  proposition  was  made  by  a  demagogue.  Socrates  30 
resisted  it  at  the  hazard  of  his  own  life.  There  is  no 
event  in  Grecian  history  more  interesting  than  that 
memorable  resistance.  Yet  who  would  have  officers 
apiK)inted  by  lot,  because  the  accident  of  the  lot  may 
have  giv»'"  ♦"  •'  "V"-\*-  m-hI  good  man  a  1)ow<m-  wliicli  1h»  35 


266  Lord  Macaulay, 

would  probably  never  have  attained  in  any  other  way  ? 
We  must  judge,  as  I  said,  by  the  general  tendency  of  a 
system.  No  person  can  doubt  that  a  House  of  Com- 
mons, chosen  freely  by  the  middle  classes,  will  contain 
5  many  very  able  men.  I  do  not  say  that  precisely  the 
same  able  men  who  would  find  their  way  into  the  present 
House  of  Commons  will  find  their  way  into  the  reformed 
House ;  but  that  is  not  the  question.  No  particular  man 
is  necessary  to  the  state.     We  may  depend  on  it,  that  if 

10  we  provide  the  country  with  popular  institutions,  those 
institutions  will  provide  it  with  great  men. 

There  is  another  objection,  which,  I  think,  was  first 
raised  by  the  honorable  and  learned  member  for  New- 
port.    He  tells  us  that  the  elective  franchise  is  property ; 

15  that  to  take  it  away  from  a  man  who  has  not  been  judi- 
cially convicted  of  malpractices  is  robbery ;  that  no  crime 
is  proved  against  the  voters  in  the  closed  boroughs  ;  that 
no  crime  is  even  imputed  to  them  in  the  preamble  of  the 
bill ;  and  that  therefore  to  disfranchise  them  without 

20  compensation  would  be  an  act  of  revoluntionary  tyranny. 
The  honorable  and  learned  gentleman  has  compared  the 
conduct  of  the  present  Ministers,  to  that  of  those  odious 
tools  of  power,  who,  toward  the  close  of  the  reign  of 
Charles  the  Second,  seized  the  charters  of  the  Whig  cor- 

25  porations.  Now,  there  was  another  precedent,  which  I 
wonder  that  he  did  not  recollect,  both  l)ecause  it  is  much 
more  nearly  in  point  than  that  to  which  he  referred,  and 
because  my  noble  friend,  the  Paymaster  of  the  Forces, 
had  previously  alluded  to  it.     If  the  elective  franchise 

30  is  property,  if  to  disfranchise  voters  without  a  crime 
proved,  or  a  compensation  given,  be  robbery,  was  there 
ever  such  an  act  of  robbery  as  the  disfranchising  of  the 
Irish  forty-shilling  freeholders  ?  Was  any  pecuniary 
compensation  given  to  them  ?     Is  it  declared  in  the  pre- 

35  amble  of  the  bill  which  took  away  their  franchise,  that 


071  the  Reform  Bill.  267 

they  had  been  convicted  of  any  offence?  Was  any 
judicial  inquiry  instituted  into  their  conduct?  Were 
they  even  accused  of  any  crime  ?  Or  if  you  say  it  was 
a  crime  in  the  electors  of  Clare  to  vote  for  the  hon- 
orable and  learned  gentleman  who  now  represents  the  5 
County  of  Waterford,  was  a  Protestant  freeholder  in 
Louth  to  be  punished  for  the  crime  of  a  Catholic  free- 
holder in  Clare  ?  If  the  principle  of  the  honorable  and 
learned  member  for  Newix)rt  be  sound,  the  franchise  of 
the  Irish  peasant  was  property.  That  franchise  the  10 
Ministers  under  whom  the  honorable  and  learned  mem- 
ber held  office  did  not  scruple  to  take  away.  Will  he 
accuse  those  Ministers  of  robbery  ?  If  not,  how  can 
he  bring  such  an  accusation  against  their  successors? 

Every  gentleman,  I  think,  who  has  spoken  from  the  15 
other  side  of  the  House,  has  alluded  to  the  opinions 
which  some  of  His  Majesty's  Ministers  formerly  enter- 
tained on  the  subject  of  reform.  It  would  be  officious 
in  me,  Sir,  to  undertake  the  defence  of  gentlemen  who 
are  so  well  able  to  defend  themselves.  I  will  only  say  20 
that,  in  my  opinion,  the  country  will  not  think  worse 
either  of  their  capacity  or  of  their  patriotism,  because 
they  have  shown  that  they  can  profit  by  experience, 
because  they  have  learned  to  see  the  folly  of  delaying 
inevitable  changes.  There  are  others  who  ought  to  have  25 
learned  the  same  lesson.  I  say,  Sir,  that  there  are  those 
who,  I  should  have  thought,  must  have  had  enough  to 
last  them  all  their  lives  of  that  humiliation  which 
follows  obstinate  and  boastfid  resistance  to  changes 
rendered  necessary  by  the  progress  of  society,  and  l)y  30 
the  development  of  the  human  mind.  Is  it  possible  that 
those  persons  can  wish  again  to  occupy  a  position  which 
can  neither  be  defended  nor  surrendered  with  honor? 
I  well  remember,  Sir,  a  certain  evening  in  the  month  of 
May,  1827.     I  had  not  then  the  honor  of  a  seat  in  this  35 


268  Lord  Macaulay. 

House ;  but  I  was  an  attentive  observer  of  its  proceed- 
ings. The  right  honorable  Baronet  opposite,  of  whom 
personally  I  desire  to  speak  with  that  high  respect 
j^rhich  I  feel  for  his  talents  and  his  character,  but  of 
6  whose  public  conduct  I  must  speak  with  the  sincerity 
required  by  my  public  duty,  was  then,  as  he  is  now,  out 
of  office.  He  had  just  resigned  the  seals  of  the  Home 
Department,  because  he  conceived  that  the  recent  Minis- 
terial arrangements  had  been  too  favorable  to  the  Catholic 

10  claims.  He  rose  to  ask  whether  it  was  the  intention  of 
the  new  Cabinet  to  repeal  the  Test  and  Corporation  Acts, 
and  to  reform  the  Parliament.  He  bound  up,  I  well 
remember,  those  two  questions  together ;  and  he  declared 
that,  if  the  Ministers  should  either  attempt  to  repeal  the 

15  Test  and  Corporation  Acts,  or  bring  forward  a  measure 
of  Parliamentary  reform,  he  should  think  it  his  duty  to 
oppose  them  to  the  utmost.  Since  that  declaration  was 
made  four  years  have  elapsed ;  and  what  is  now  tlie  state 
of  the  three  questions  which  then  chiefly  agitated  the 

20  minds  of  men  ?  What  is  become  of  the  Test  and  Cor- 
poration Acts  ?  They  are  repealed.  By  whom  ?  By 
the  right  honorable  Baronet.  What  has  become  of  the 
Catholic  disabilities  ?  They  are  removed.  By  whom  ? 
By  the  right  honorable  Baronet.     The  question  of  Par- 

25  liamentary  reform  is  still  behind.  But  signs,  of  which 
it  is  impossible  to  misconceive  the  import,  do  most 
clearly  indicate  that,  unless  that  question  also  be 
speedily  settled,  property,  and  order,  and  all  the  insti- 
tutions of  this  great  monarchy,  will  be  exposed  to  fear- 

30  ful  peril.  Is  it  possible  that  gentlemen  long  versed  in 
high  political  affairs  cannot  read  these  signs?  Is  it 
possible  that  they  can  really  believe  that  the  represen- 
tative system  of  England,  such  as  it  now  is,  will  last  till 
the  year  1860?     If  not,  for  what  would  they  have  us 

35  wait  ?     Would  they  have  us  wait  merely  that  we  may 


On  the  Reform  Bill  269 

show  to  all  the  world  how  little  we  have  profited  by  our 
own  recent  experience  ?  Would  they  have  us  wait  that 
we  may  once  again  hit  the  exact  point  where  we  can 
neither  refuse  with  authority,  nor  concede  with  grace  ? 
Would  they  have  us  wait  that  the  numbers  of  the  dis-  5 
contented  party  may  become  larger,  its  demands  higher, 
its  feelings  more  acrimonious,  its  organization  more  com- 
plete ?  Would  they  have  us  wait  till  the  whole  tragi- 
comedy of  1827  has  been  acted  over  again;  till  they 
have  been  brought  into  office  by  a  cry  of  "  No  Reform,"  lo 
to  be  reformers,  as  they  were  once  before  brought  into 
office  by  a  cry  of  "No  Popery,"  to  be  emancipators? 
Have  they  obliterated  from  their  minds  —  gladly,  per- 
haps, would  some  among  them  obliterate  from  their 
minds  —  the  transactions  of  that  year  ?  And  have  they  15 
forgotten  all  the  transactions  of  the  succeeding  year? 
Have  they  forgotten  how  the  spirit  of  liberty  in  Ireland, 
debarred  from  its  natural  outlet,  found  a  vent  by  forbid- 
den passages  ?  Have  they  forgotten  how  we  were  forced 
to  indulge  the  Catholics  in  all  the  license  of  rebels,  20 
merely  because  we  chose  to  withhold  from  them  the 
liberties  of  subjects  ?  Do  they  wait  for  associations 
more  formidable  than  that  of  the  Corn  Exchange,  for 
contributions  larger  than  the  Rent,  for  agitators  more 
violent  than  those  who,  three  years  ago,  divided  with  25 
the  King  and  the  Parliament  the  sovereignty  of  Ireland  ? 
Do  they  wait  for  that  last  and  most  dreadful  paroxysm  of 
popular  rage,  for  that  last  and  most  cruel  test  of  military 
fidelity  ?  Let  them  wait,  if  their  past  experience  shall 
induce  them  to  think  that  any  high  honor  or  any  ex-  30 
quisite  pleasure  is  to  be  obtained  by  a  policy  like  this. 
Let  them  wait,  if  this  strange  and  fearful  infatuation 
Ihj  indeed  upon  them,  that  they  should  not  see  with  their 
cvi's,  or  hear  with  their  ears,  or  understand  with  their 
heart.    But  let  us  know  our  interest  and  our  duty  better.  35 


270  Lord  Macaulay. 

Turn  where  we  may,  within,  around,  the  voice  of  great 
events  is  proclaiming  to  us :  Reform,  that  you  may  pre- 
serve. Now,  therefore,  while  everything  at  home  and 
abroad  forebodes  ruin  to  those  who  persist  in  a  hopeless 

5  struggle  against  the  spirit  of  the  age ;  now,  while  the 
crash  of  the  proudest  throne  of  the  Continent  is  still 
resounding  in  our  ears  ;  now,  while  the  roof  of  a  British 
palace  aifords  an  ignominious  shelter  to  the  exiled  heir 
of  forty  kings ;  now,  while  we  see  on  every  side  ancient 

10  institutions  subverted,  and  great  societies  dissolved ;  now, 
while  the  heart  of  England  is  still  sound ;  now,  while  old 
feelings  and  old  associations  retain  a  power  and  a  charm 
which  may  too  soon  pass  away ;  now,  in  this  your  accepted 
time,  now,  in  this  your  day  of  salvation,  take  counsel, 

15  not  of  prejudice,  not  of  party  spirit,  not  of  the  igno- 
minious pride  of  a  fatal  consistency,  but  of  history,  of 
reason,  of  the  ages  which  are  past,  of  the  signs  of  this 
most  portentous  time.  Pronounce  in  a  manner  worthy 
of  the  expectation  with  which  this  great  debate  has  been 

30  anticipated,  and  of  the  long  remembrance  which  it  will 
leave  behind.  Renew  the  youth  of  the  state.  Save 
property,  divided  against  itself.  Save  the  multitude, 
endangered  by  its  own  ungovernable  passions.  Save  the 
aristocracy,  endangered  by  its   own   unpopular   power. 

25  Save  the  greatest,^  and  fairest,  and  most  highly  civilized 
community  that  ever  existed,  from  calamities  which  may 
in  a  few  days  sweep  away  all  the  rich  heritage  of  so 
many  ages  of  wdsdom  and  glory.  The  danger  is  terrible. 
The  time  is  short.     If  this  bill  should  be  rejected,  I  pray 

30  to  God  that  none  of  those  who  concur  in  rejecting  it 
may  ever  remember  their  votes  with  unavailing  remorse, 
amidst  the  wreck  of  laws,  the  confusion  of  ranks,  the 
spoliation  of  property,  and  the  dissolution  of  social 
order. 


JOHN  C.  CALHOUN. 


ON  THE  SLAVERY  QUESTION  ;  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES  SENATE, 
MARCH  4,  18M). 


I  HAVE,  Senators,  believed  from  the  first  that  the 
agitation  of  the  subject  of  slavery  would,  if  not  pre- 
vented by  some  timely  and  effective  measure,  end  in 
disunion.  Entertaining  this  opinion,  I  have,  on  all 
proper  occasions,  endeavored  to  call  the  attention  of  6 
both  the  two  great  parties  which  divide  the  country 
to  adopt  some  measure  to  prevent  so  great  a  disaster, 
but  without  success.  The  agitation  has  been  permitted 
to  proceed  with  almost  no  attempt  to  resist  it,  until  it 
has  reached  a  point  when  it  can  no  longer  be  disguised  10 
or  denied  that  the  Union  is  in  danger.  You  have  thus 
had  forced  upon  you  the  greatest  and  the  gravest  ques- 
tion that  can  ever  come  under  your  consideration  —  How 
can  the  Union  be  preserved  ? 

To  give  a  satisfactory  answer  to  this  mighty  question,  is 
it  is  indispensable  to  have  an  accurate  and  thorough 
knowledge  of  the  nature  and  the  character  of  tlie  cause 
l)y  which  the  Union  is  endangered.  Without  such  knowl- 
edge it  is  impossible  to  pronounce  with  any  certainty, 
by  what  measure  it  can  be  saved ;  just  as  it  would  be  20 
imjwssible  for  a  physician  to  pronounce  in  the  case  of 
some  dangerous  disease,  with  any  certainty,  by  what 
remedy  the   patient  could   be   saved,  without   similar 

271 


272  Calhoun. 

knowledge  of  the  nature  and  character  of  the  cause 
which  produced  it.  The  first  question,  then,  presented 
for  consideration  in  the  investigation  I  propose  to  make 
in  order  to  obtain  such  knowledge,  is  —  What  is  it  that 
6  has  endangered  the  Union  ? 

To  this  question  there  can  be  but  one  answer,  —  That 
the  immediate  cause  is  the  almost  universal  discontent 
which  pervades  all  the  States  composing  the  Southern 
section  of  the  Union.     This  widely  extended  discontent 

10  is  not  of  recent  origin.  It  commenced  with  the  agitar 
tion  of  the  slavery  question,  and  has  been  increasing 
ever  since.  The  next  question,  going  one  step  further 
back,  is  —  What  has  caused  this  widely  diffused  and 
almost  universal  discontent? 

16  It  is  a  great  mistake  to  suppose,  as  is  by  some,  that  it 
originated  with  demagogues,  who  excited  the  discontent 
with  the  intention  of  aiding  their  personal  advancement, 
or  with  the  disappointed  ambition  of  certain  i>oliticians, 
who  resorted  to  it  as  the  means  of  retrieving  their  fortunes. 

20  On  the  contrary,  all  the  great  political  influences  of  the 
section  were  arrayed  against  excitement,  and  exerted  to 
the  utmost  to  keep  the  people  quiet.  The  great  mass  of 
the  people  of  the  South  were  divided,  as  in  the  other 
section,  into  Whigs  and  Democrats.     The  leaders  and 

25  the  presses  of  both  parties  in  the  South  were  very  solici- 
tous to  prevent  excitement  and  to  preserve  quiet ;  because 
it  was  seen  that  the  effects  of  the  former  would  neces- 
sarily tend  to  weaken,  if  not  destroy,  the  political  ties 
which  united  them  with  their  respective  parties  in  the 

30  other  section.  Those  who  know  the  strength  of  party 
ties  will  readily  appreciate  the  immense  force  which  this 
cause  exerted  against  agitation,  and  in  favor  of  preserv- 
ing quiet.  But,  great  as  it  was,  it  was  not  sufficient  to 
prevent  the  wide-spread  discontent  which  now  pervades 

35  the  section.      No ;    some   cause  far  deeper  and  more 


On  the  Slavery  Question.  273 

powerful  than  the  one  supposed,  must  exist,  to  account 
for  discontent  so  wide  and  deep.  The  question  then 
recurs  —  What  is  the  cause  of  this  discontent  ?  It  will 
be  found  in  the  belief  of  the  people  of  the  Southern 
States,  as  prevalent  as  the  discontent  itself,  that  they  6 
cannot  remain,  as  things  now  are,  consistently  with  honor 
and  safety,  in  the  Union.  The  next  question  to  be  con- 
sidered is — TVTiat  has  caused  this  belief? 

One  of  the  causes  is,  undoubtedly,  to  be  traced  to  the 
long-continued  agitation  of  the  slave  question  on  the  10 
part  of  the  Noi-th,  and  the  many  aggressions  which  they 
have  made  on  the  rights  of  the  South  during  the  time. 
I  will  not  enumerate  them  at  present,  as  it  will  be  done 
hereafter  in  its  proper  place. 

There  is  another  lying  back  of  it  — with  which  this  is  15 
intimately  connected — that  may  be  regarded  as  the  great 
and  primary  cause.     This  is  to  be  found  in  the  fact  that 
the  equilibriimi  between  the  two  sections  in  the  govern- 
ment as  it  stood  when  the  Constitution  was  ratified  and 
the  government  put  in  action,  has  been  destroyed.    At  20 
that  time  there  was  nearly  a  perfect  equilibrium  between 
the  two,  which  afforded  ample  means  to  each  to  protect 
itself  against  the  aggression  of  the  other ;  but,  as  it  now 
stands,  one  section  has  the  exclusive  power  of  controlling 
the  government,  which  leaves  the  other  without  any  25 
adequate  means  of  protecting  itself  against  its  encroach- 
ment and  oppression.    To  place  this  subject  distinctly 
before  you,  I  have.  Senators,  prepared  a  brief  statistical 
statement,  showing  the  relative  weight  of  the  two  sec- 
tions in  the  government  under  the  first  census  of  1790,  30 
and  the  last  census  of  1840. 

According  to  the  former,  the  population  of  the  United 
States  —  including  Vermont,  Kentucky,  and  Tennessee, 
which  then  were  in  their  incipient  condition  of  becoming 
States,  but  were  not  actually  admitted  —  amounted  to  35 


274  Calhoun, 

3,929,827.  Of  this  number  the  Northern  States  had 
1,997,899,  and  the  Southern  1,952,072,  making  a  differ- 
ence of  only  45,827  in  favor  of  the  former  States.  The 
number  of  States,  including  Vermont,  Kentucky,  and 
5  Tennessee,  was  sixteen ;  of  which  eight,  including  Ver- 
mont, belonged  to  the  Northern  section,  and  eight,  in- 
cluding Kentucky  and  Tennessee,  to  the  Southern, — 
making  an  equal  division  of  the  States  between  the  two 
sections  under  the  first  census.     There  was  a  small  pre- 

10  ponderance  in  the  House  of  Representatives  and  in  the 
Electoral  College,  in  favor  of  the  Northern,  owing  to  the 
fact  that,  according  to  the  provisions  of  the  Constitution, 
in  estimating  federal  numbers  five  slaves  count  but  three ; 
but  it  was  too  small  to  affect  sensibly  the  perfect  equilib- 

15  rium  which,  with  that  exception,  existed  at  the  time. 
Such  was  the  equality  of  the  two  sections  when  the 
States  composing  them  agreed  to  enter  into  a  Federal 
Union.  Since  then  the  equilibrium  between  them  has 
been  greatly  disturbed. 

20  According  to  the  last  census  the  aggregate  population 
of  the  United  States  amounted  to  17,063,357,  of  wliicli  the 
Northern  section  contained  9,728,920,  and  the  Southern 
7,334,437,  making  a  difference  in  round  numbers,  of 
2,400,000.     The  number  of   States  had  increased  from 

25  sixteen  to  twenty-six,  making  an  addition  of  ten  States. 
In  the  mean  time  the  position  of  Delaware  had  become 
doubtful  as  to  the  section  to  which  she  properly  belonged. 
Considering  her  as  neutral,  the  Northern  States  will 
have  thirteen  and  the  Southern  States  twelve,  making  a 

30  difference  in  the  Senate  of  two  senators  in  favor  of  the 
former.  According  to  the  apportionment  under  the  census 
of  1840,  there  were  two  hundred  and  twenty-three  mem- 
bers of  the  House  of  Representatives,  of  which  the 
Northern  States  had  one  hundred  and  thirty-five,  and 

35  the  Southern  States  (considering  Delaware  as  neutral) 


On  the  Slavery  Question,  275 

eighty-seven,  making  a  difference  in  favor  of  the  former 
in  the  House  of  Representatives  of  forty-eight.  The 
difference  in  the  Senate  of  two  members,  added  to  this, 
gives  to  the  North  in  the  Electoral  College,  a  majority 
of  fifty.  Since  the  census  of  1840,  four  States  have  5 
been  added  to  the  Union,  —  Iowa,  Wisconsin,  Florida, 
and  Texas.  They  leave  the  difference  in  the  Senate  as 
it  was  when  the  census  was  taken ;  but  add  two  to  the 
side  of  the  North  in  the  House,  making  the  present 
majority  in  the  House  in  its  favor  fifty,  and  in  the  lO 
Electoral  College  fifty-two. 

The  result  of  the  whole  is  to  give  the  Northern 
section  a  j)redominance  in  every  department  of  the  gov- 
ernment, and  thereby  concentrate  in  it  the  two  elements 
which  constitute  the  Federal  Government :  a  majority  of  15 
States,  and  a  majority  of  their  population,  estimated  in 
federal  numbers.  Whatever  section  concentrates  the  two 
in  itself  i)OSsesses  the  control  of  the  entire  government. 

But  we  are  just  at  the  close  of  the  sixth  decade,  and 
the  commencement  of  the  seventh.  The  census  is  to  be  20 
taken  this  year,  which  must  add  greatly  to  the  decided 
preponderance  of  the  North  in  the  House  of  Represen- 
tatives and  in  the  Electoral  College.  The  prospect  is, 
also,  that  a  great  increase  will  be  added  to  its  present 
prei)onderance  in  the  Senate,  during  the  period  of  the  25 
decade,  by  the  addition  of  new  States.  Two  territories, 
Oregon  and  Minnesota,  are  already  in  progress,  and 
strenuous  efforts  are  making  to  bring  in  three  additional 
States  from  the  territory  recently  conquered  from  Mexico ; 
which,  if  successful,  will  add  three  other  States  in  a  30 
short  time  to  the  Northern  section,  making  five  States ; 
and  increasing  the  present  number  of  its  States  from 
fifteen  to  twenty,  and  of  its  senators  from  thirty  to  forty. 
On  the  contrary,  there  is  not  a  single  territory  in  progress 
in  the  Southern  section,  and  no  certainty  that  any  addi-  35 


276  Calhoun. 

tional  State  will  be  added  to  it  during  the  decade.  The 
prospect  then  is,  that  the  two  sections  in  the  Senate, 
should  the  efforts  now  nijide  to  exclude  the  South  from 
the  newly  acquired  territories  succeed,  will  stand,  before 

6  the  end  of  the  decade,  twenty  Northern  States  to  four- 
teen Southern  (considering  Delaware  as  neutral),  and 
forty  Northern  senators  to  twenty-eight  Southern.  This 
great  increase  of  senators,  added  to  the  great  increase  of 
members  of  the  House  of  Representatives  and  the  Elec- 

10  toral  College  on  the  part  of  the  North,  which  must  take 
place  under  the  next  decade,  will  effectually  and  irre- 
trievably destroy  the  equilibrium  which  existed  when 
the  government  commenced. 

Had  this  destruction  been  the  operation  of  time,  with- 

16  out  the  interference  of  government,  the  South  would 
have  had  no  reason  to  complain ;  but  such  was  not  the 
fact.  It  was  caused  by  the  legislation  of  this  govern- 
ment, which  was  apjx>inted  as  the  common  agent  of  all, 
and  charged  with  the  protection  of  the  interests  and 

20  security  of  all.  The  legislation  by  which  it  has  been 
effected  may  be  classed  under  three  heads.  The  first  is 
that  series  of  acts  by  which  the  South  has  been  excluded 
from  the  common  territory  belonging  to  all  the  States  as 
members  of  the  Federal  Union  —  which  have  had  the 

25  effect  of  extending  vastly  the  portion  allotted  to  the 
Northern  section,  and  restricting  within  narrow  limits 
the  portion  left  the  South.  The  next  consists  in  adopt- 
ing a  system  of  revenue  and  disbursements  by  which  an 
undue  proportion  of  the  burden  of  taxation  has  been 

30  imposed  upon  the  South,  and  an  undue  proportion  of  its 
proceeds  appropriated  to  the  North  ;  and  the  last  is  a 
system  of  political  measures  by  which  the  original  char- 
acter of  the  government  has  been  radically  changed.  I 
propose  to  bestow  upon  each  of  these,  in  the  order  they 

35  stand,  a  few  remarks,  with  the  view  of  showing  that 


On  the  Slavery  Question,  277 

it  is  owing  to  the  action  of  this  government,  that  the 
equilibrium  between  the  two  sections  has  been  destroyed, 
and  the  whole  powers  of  the  system  centred  in  a  sec- 
tional majority. 

The  tirst  of  the  series  of  acts  by  which  the  South  was  5 
deprived  of  its  due  share  of  the  territories,  originated 
with  the  confederacy  which  preceded  the  existence  of 
this  government.  It  is  to  be  found  in  the  provision  of 
the  ordinance  of  1787.  Its  effect  was  to  exclude  the 
South  entirely  from  that  vast  and  fertile  region  which  lo 
lies  between  the  Ohio  and  the  Mississippi  Rivers,  now 
embracing  five  States  and  one  Territory.  The  next  of 
the  series  is  the  Missouri  Compromise,  which  excluded 
the  South  from  that  large  portion  of  Louisiana  which 
lies  north  of  36°  30',  excepting  what  is  included  in  the  15 
State  of  Missouri.  The  last  of  the  series  excluded  the 
South  from  the  whole  of  the  Oregon  Territory.  All 
these,  in  the  slang  of  the  day,  were  what  are  called 
slave  territories,  and  not  free  soil ;  that  is,  territories 
belonging  to  slaveholding  powers  and  open  to  the  emi-  20 
gration  of  masters  with  their  slaves.  By  these  several 
acts,  the  South  was  excluded  from  1,238,025  square  miles 
—  an  extent  of  country  considerably  exceeding  the  entire 
valley  of  the  Mississippi.  To  the  South  was  left  the 
portion  of  the  Territory  of  Louisiana  lying  south  of  25 
36°  30^,  and  the  portion  north  of  it  included  in  the 
State  of  Missouri,  with  the  portion  lying  south  of  30° 
30',  including  the  States  of  Louisiana  and  Arkansas,  and 
the  territory  lying  west  of  the  latter  and  south  of  36° 
30',  called  the  Indian  country.  These,  with  the  Territory  30 
of  Florida,  now  the  State,  make,  in  the  whole,  283,603 
square  miles.  To  this  must  be  added  the  territory 
acquired  with  Texas.  If  the  whole  should  be  added  to 
the  Southern  section,  it  would  make  an  increase  of  325,520, 
which  would  mako  th.'  wl-.-l.'  l-fh  to  the  South  609,023.  35 


278  Calhoun, 

But  a  large  part  of  Texas  is  still  in  contest  between  the 
two  sections,  which  leaves  it  uncertain  wliat  will  be  the 
real  eitent  of  the  ])ortion  of  territory  tliat  may  be  left 
to  the  South. 

5  I  have  not  included  the  territory  recently  acquired  by 
the  treaty  with  Mexico.  The  North  is  making  the  most 
strenuous  efforts  to  appropriate  the  whole  to  herself,  by 
excluding  the  South  from  every  foot  of  it.  If  she  should 
succeed,  it  will  add  to  that  from  which  the  South  has 

10  already  been  excluded,  526,078  square  miles,  and  would 
increase  the  whole  which  the  North  has  appropriated  to 
herself,  to  1,764,023,  not  including  the  poi-tion  that  she 
may  succeed  in  excluding  us  from  in  Texas.  To  sum  up 
the  whole,  the  United  States,  since  they  declared  their 

15  independence,  have  acquired  2,373,046  square  miles  of 
territory,  from  which  the  North  will  have  excluded  the 
South,  if  she  should  succeed  in  monopolizing  the  newly 
acquired  territories,  about  three-fourths  of  the  whole, 
leaving  to  the  South  but  about  one-fourth. 

20  Such  is  the  first  and  great  cause  that  has  destroyed 
the  equilibrium  between  the  two  sections  in  the  govern- 
ment. 

The  next  is  the  system  of  revenue  and  disbursements 
which  has  been  adopted  by  the  government.     It  is  well 

25  known  that  the  government  has  derived  its  revenue 
mainly  from  duties  on  imports.  I  shall  not  undertake 
to  show  that  such  duties  must  necessarily  fall  mainly  on 
the  exporting  States,  and  that  the  South,  as  the  great 
exporting  portion  of  the  Union,  has  in  reality  paid  vastly 

30  more  than  her  due  proportion  of  the  revenue ;  because  I 
deem  it  unnecessary,  as  the  subject  has  on  so  many  occa- 
sions been  fully  discussed.  Nor  shaU  I,  for  the  same 
reason,  undertake  to  show  that  a  far  greater  portion  of 
the  revenue  has  been  disbursed  at  the  North,  than  its 

35  due  share  ;  and  that  the  joint  effect  of  these  causes  has 


On  the  Slavery  Question,  279 

been  to  transfer  a  vast  amount  from  South  to  North, 
which,  under  an  equal  system  of  revenue  and  disburse- 
ments, would  not  have  l)een  lost  to  her.  If  to  this  be 
added,  that  many  of  the  duties  were  imposed,  not  for 
revenue,  but  for  protection,  —  that  is,  intended  to  put  6 
money,  not  in  the  treasury,  but  directly  into  the  jx)cket 
of  the  manufacturers,  —  some  conception  may  be  formed 
of  tlie  immense  amount  which,  in  the  long  course  of 
sixty  years,  has  been  transferred  from  South  to  Korth. 
There  are  no  data  by  which  it  can  be  estimated  with  any  lo 
certainty ;  but  it  is  safe  to  say  that  it  amounts  to  hun- 
dreds of  millions  of  dollars.  Under  the  most  moderate 
estimate,  it  would  be  sufficient  to  add  greatly  to  the 
wealth  of  the  Nortli,  and  thus  greatly  increase  her 
I)opulation  by  attracting  emigration  from  all  quarters  15 
to  that  section. 

This,  combined  with  the  great  primary  cause,  amply 
explains  why  the  North  has  acquired  a  preponderance 
in  every  department  of  the  government  by  its  dispropor- 
tionate increase  of  population  and  States.  The  former,  *^ 
as  has  been  shown,  has  increased,  in  fifty  years,  2,400,000 
over  that  of  the  South.  This  increase  of  population 
during  so  long  a  period,  is  satisfactorily  accounted  for 
by  the  number  of  emigrants,  and  the  increase  of  their 
descendants,  which  have  been  attracted  to  the  Northern  26 
section  from  Europe  and  the  South,  in  consequence  of 
the  advantages  derived  from  the  causes  assigned.  If 
they  had  not  existed  —  if  the  South  had  retained  all  the 
capital  which  has  been  extracted  from  her  by  the  fiscal 
action  of  the  government ;  and  if  it  had  not  been  ex-  30 
eluded  by  the  ordinance  of  1787  and  the  Missouri  Com- 
promise, from  the  region  lying  between  the  Ohio  and  the 
Mississippi  Rivera,  and  between  the  Mississippi  and  tlie 
Rocky  Mountains  north  of  36°  30' — it  scarcely  admits  of 
a  doubt,  that  it  would  have  divided  the  emigration  with  85 


280  Calhoun, 

the  North,  and  by  retaining  her  own  people,  would  have 
at  least  equalled  the  North  in  population  under  the 
census  of  1840,  and  probably  under  that  about  to  be 
taken.  She  would  also,  if  she  had  retained  her  equal 
5  riglits  in  those  territories,  have  maintained  an  equality 
in  the  number  of  States  with  the  North,  and  have  pre- 
served the  equilibrium  between  the  two  sections  that 
existed  at  the  commencement  of  the  government.  The 
loss,  then,  of  the  equilibrium  is  to  be  attributed  to  the 

10  action  of  this  government. 

lUit  while  these  measures  were  destroying  the  equi- 
librium between  the  two  sections,  the  action  of  the  gov- 
ernment was  leading  to  a  radical  change  in  its  chai-acter, 
by  concentrating  all  the  power  of  the  system  in  itself. 

15  The  occasion  will  not  permit  me  to  trace  the  measures 
by  which  this  great  change  has  been  consummated.  If 
it  did,  it  would  not  be  difficult  to  show  that  the  process 
commenced  at  an  early  period  of  the  government;  and 
that  it  proceeded  almost  without  interruption,  step  by 

20  step,  until  it  absorbed  virtually  its  entire  |K)wers ;  but 
without  going  through  the  whole  process  to  establish 
the  fact,  it  may  be  done  satisfactorily  by  a  very  short 
statement. 

That  the  government  claims,  and  practically  main- 

25  tains,  the  right  to  decide  in  the  last  resort,  as  to  the 
extent  of  its  powers,  will  scarcely  be  denied  by  any  one 
conversant  with  the  political  history  of  the  country. 
That  it  also  claims  the  right  to  resort  to  force  to  main- 
tain whatever  power  it  claims,  against  all  opposition,  is 

30  equally  certain.  Indeed  it  is  apparent,  from  what  we 
daily  hear,  that  this  has  become  the  prevailing  and  fixed 
opinion  of  a  great  majority  of  the  community.  Now,  I 
ask,  what  limitation  can  possibly  be  placed  upon  the 
powers  of  a  government  claiming  and  exercising  such 

35  riglits  ?     And,   if  none   can  be,  how  can   the   se}xirate 


On  the  Slavery  Question.  281 

governments  of  the  States  maintain  and  protect  the 
l)ower8  reserved  to  them  by  the  Constitution  —  or  the 
people  of  the  several  States  maintain  those  which  are 
reserved  to  them,  and  among  others,  the  sovereign  powers 
by  which  they  ordained  and  established,  not  only  their  6 
separate  State  Constitutions  and  governments,  but  also 
tlie  Constitution  and  government  of  the  United  States  ? 
lUit,  if  they  have  no  constitutional  means  of  maintaining 
them  against  the  right  claimed  by  this  government,  it 
necessarily  follows,  that  they  hold  them  at  its  pleasure  10 
and  discretion,  and  that  all  tlie  powers  of  the  system  are 
in  reality  concentrated  in  it.  It  also  follows,  that  the 
character  of  the  government  has  been  changed  in  con- 
sequence, from  a  federal  republic,  as  it  originally  came 
from  the  hands  of  its  f ramers,  into  a  great  national  con- 15 
solidated  democracy.  It  has  indeed,  at  present,  all  the 
characteristics  of  the  latter,  and  not  one  of  the  former, 
although  it  still  retains  its  outward  form. 

The  result  of  the  whole  of  those  causes  combined  is, 
that  the  North  has  acquired  a  decided  ascendency  over  20 
every  department  of  this  government,  and  through  it  a 
control  over  all  the  powers  of  the  system.     A  single 
section  governed  by  the  will  of  the  numerical  majority, 
has  now,  in  fact,  the  control  of  the  government  and  the     • 
entire  powers  of  the  system.     What  was  once  a  consti-  25 
tutional  federal  republic,  is  now  converted,  in  reality, 
into  one  as  absolute  as  that  of  the  Autocrat  of  Russia, 
and  as  despotic  in  its  tendency  as  any  absolute  govern- 
ment that  ever  existed. 

As,  then,  the  North  has  the  absolute  control  over  the  30 
government,  it  is  manifest,  that  on  all  questions  between 
it  and  the  South,  where  there  is  a  diversity  of  interests, 
the  interest  of  the  latter  will  be  sacrificed  to  the  former, 
however  oppressive  the  effects  may  be;  as  the  South 

no  i!"'P'^  ^y  wliicli  it  cjui  resist,  through  the  35 


282  Calhoun. 

action  of  the  government.  But  if  there  was  no  question 
of  vital  importance  to  the  South,  in  reference  to  which 
there  was  a  diversity  of  views  between  the  two  sections, 
this  state  of  things  might  be  endured  without  the  hazard 

5  of  destruction  to  the  South.  But  such  is  not  the  fact. 
There  is  a  question  of  Vital  importance  to  the  Southern 
section,  in  reference  to  which  the  views  and  feelings  of 
the  two  sections  are  as  opposite  and  hostile  as  they  can 
possibly  be. 

10  I  refer  to  the  relation  between  the  two  races  in  the 
Southern  section,  which  constitutes  a  vital  portion  of 
her  social  organization.  Every  portion  of  the  North 
entertains  views  and  feelings  more  or  less  hostile  to  it. 
Those  most  opiX)sed  and  hostile  regard  it  as  a  sin,  and 

15  consider  themselves  under  the  most  sacred  obligation  to 
use  every  effort  to  destroy  it.  Indeed,  to  the  extent  that 
they  conceive  that  they  have  power,  they  regard  them- 
selves as  implicated  in  the  sin,  and  responsible  for  not 
suppressing  it  by  the  use  of  all  and  every  means.     Those 

20  less  opposed  and  hostile,  regard  it  as  a  crime  —  an  of- 
fence against  humanity,  as  they  call  it ;  and,  although 
not  so  fanatical,  feel  themselves  bound  to  use  all  efforts 
to  effect  the  same  object;  while  those  who  are  least 
opposed  and  hostile,  regard  it  as  a  blot  and  a  stain  on 

25  the  character  of  what  they  call  the  Nation,  and  feel 
themselves  accordingly  bound  to  give  it  no  countenance 
or  support.  On  the  contrary,  the  Southern  section  regards 
the  relation  as  one  which  cannot  be  destroyed  without 
subjecting  the  two  races  to  the  greatest  calamity,  and 

30  the  section  to  poverty,  desolation,  and  wretchedness ; 
and  accordingly  they  feel  bound  by  every  consideration 
of  interest  and  safety  to  defend  it. 

This  hostile  feeling  on  the  part  of  the  North  towards 
the  social  organization  of  the  South  long  lay  dormajit, 

35  but  it  only  required  some  cause  to  act  on  those  who  felt 


On  the  Slavery  Question.  283 

most  intensely  that  they  were  responsible  for  its  continu- 
ance, to  call  it  into  action.  The  increasing  power  of  this 
government,  and  of  the  control  of  the  Northern  section 
over  all  its  departments,  furnished  the  cause.  It  was 
this  which  made  an  impression  on  the  minds  of  many  6 
that  there  was  little  or  no  restraint  to  prevent  the  gov- 
ernment from  doing  whatever  it  might  choose  to  do. 
This  was  sufficient  of  itself  to  put  the  most  fanatical 
portion  of  the  North  in  action,  for  the  purpose  of  de- 
stroying the  existing  relation  between  the  two  races  in  lo 
the  South. 

The  first  organized  movement  towards  it  commenced 
in  1835.  Then,  for  the  first  time,  societies  were  organ- 
ized, presses  established,  lecturers  sent  forth  to  excite 
the  people  of  the  North,  and  incendiary  publications  15 
scattered  over  the  whole  South,  through  the  mail.  The 
South  was  thoroughly  aroused.  Meetings  were  held 
everywhere,  and  resolutions  adopted,  calling  upon  the 
North  to  apply  a  remedy  to  arrest  the  threatened  evil, 
and  pledging  themselves  to  adopt  measures  for  their  own  20 
protection,  if  it  was  not  arrested.  At  the  meeting  of 
Congress,  petitions  poured  in  from  the  North,  calling 
upon  Congress  to  abolish  slavery  in  the  District  of 
Columbia,  and  to  prohibit  what  they  called  the  inter- 
nal slave  trade  between  the  States  —  announcing  at  the  26 
same  time  that  their  ultimate  object  was  to  abolish 
slavery,  not  only  in  the  District,  but  in  the  States  and 
throughout  the  Union.  At  this  period,  the  number  en- 
gaged in  the  agitation  was  small,  and  possessed  little  or 
no  personal  influence.  30 

Neither  party  in  Congress  had,  at  that  time,  any  sym- 
pathy with  them  or  their  cause.  The  members  of  each 
l)arty  presented  their  petitions  with  great  reluctance. 
Nevertheless,  small  and  contemptible  as  the  party  then 
was,  both   of  the  great  parties  of  the  North  dreaded  36 


284  Calhoun. 

them.  They  felt  that,  though  small,  they  were  organized 
in  reference  to  a  subject  which  had  a  great  and  a  com- 
manding influence  over  the  Noi-thern  mind.  Eai;h  party, 
on  that  account,  feared  to  opi)Ose  their  petitions,  lest  the 

r*  opposite  party  should  take  advantage  of  the  one  that 
might  do  so,  by  favoring  them.  The  effect  was  that 
both  united  in  insisting  that  the  petitions  should  be 
received,  and  that  Congress  should  take  jurisdiction  over 
the  subject.     To  justify  their  course,  they  took  the  ex- 

10  traordinary  ground  that  Congress  was  bound  to  receive 
l)etitions  on  every  subject,  however  objectionable  they 
might  be,  and  whether  they  liad,  or  h;ul  not,  jurisdiction 
over  the  subject.  These  views  prevailed  in  the  House 
of  Representatives,  and  partially  in  the  Senate ;  and  thus 

15  the  party  succeeded  in  their  first  movements,  in  gaining 
what  they  proposed  —  a  jwsition  in  Congress  in 'in  wliich 
agitation  could  be  extended  over  the  whole  Union.  This 
was  the  commencement  of  the  agitation  which  has  ever 
since  continued,  and  which,  as  is  now  acknowledged,  has 

20  endangered  the  Union  itself. 

As  for  myself,  I  believed  at  that  early  period,  if  the 
party  that  got  up  the  petitions  should  succeed  in  getting 
Congress  to  take  jurisdiction,  that  agitation  would  follow, 
and  that  it  would  in  the  end,  if  not  arrested,  destroy  the 

25  Union.  I  then  so  expressed  myself  in  debate,  and  called 
upon  both  parties  to  take  grounds  against  assuming  juris- 
diction; but  in  vain.  Had  my  voice  been  heeded,  and 
had  Congress  refused  to  take  jurisdiction,  by  the  united 
votes  of  all  parties,  the  agitation  which  followed  would 

30  have  been  prevented,  and  the  fanatical  zeal  that  gives 
impulse  to  the  agitation,  and  which  has  brought  us  to 
our  present  perilous  condition,  woidd  have  become  extin- 
guished from  the  want  of  fuel  to  feed  the  flame.  That 
was  the  time  for  the  North  to  have  shown  her  devotion 

35  to  the  Union ;  but,  unfortunately,  both  of  the  great  parties 


On  the  Slavery  Question.  285 

of  that  section  were  so  intent  on  obtaining  or  retaining 
party  ascendency,  that  all  other  considerations  were  over- 
looked or  forgotten. 

What  has  since  followed  are  but  natural  consequences. 
With  the  success  of  their  first  movement,  this  small  5 
fanatical  party  began  to  acquire  strength ;  and  with  that, 
to  become  an  object  of  courtship  to  both  the  great  parties. 
The  necessary  consequence  was  a  further  increase  of 
power,  and  a  gradual  tainting  of  the  opinions  of  both 
of  the  other  parties  with  their  doctrines,  until  the  infeo-  lO 
tion  has  extended  over  both ;  and  the  great  mass  of  the 
pojuilation  of  the  North,  who,  whatever  may  be  their 
opinion  of  the  original  abolition  party,  which  still  pre- 
serves its  distinctive  organization,  hardly  ever  fail,  when 
it  comes  to  acting,  to  co-operate  in  carrying  out  their  15 
measures.  With  the  increase  of  their  influence,  they 
extended  the  sphere  of  their  action.  In  a  short  time 
after  the  commencement  of  their  first  movement,  they 
had  acquired  sufficient  influence  to  induce  the  legislatures 
of  most  of  the  Northern  States  to  pass  acts,  which  in  20 
effect  abrogated  the  clause  of  the  Constitution  that  pro- 
vides for  the  delivery  up  of  fugitive  slaves.  Not  long 
after,  petitions  followed  to  abolish  slavery  in  forts,  maga- 
zines, and  dockyards,  and  all  other  places  where  Congress 
had  exclusive  power  of  legislation.  This  was  followed  by  25 
petitions  and  resolutions  of  legislatures  of  the  Northern 
States,  and  jwpular  meetings,  to  exclude  the  Southern 
States  from  all  territories  acquired,  or  to  be  acquired, 
and  to  prevent  the  admission  of  any  State  hereafter  into 
the  Union,  which,  by  its  constitution,  does  not  prohibit  30 
slavery.  And  Congress  is  invoked  to  do  all  this,  ex- 
l)ressly  with  the  view  to  the  final  abolition  of  slavery  in 
the  States.  That  has  been  avowed  to  be  the  ultimate 
object  from  the  beginning  of  the  agitation  until  the 
present  time ;  and  yet  the  great  body  of  both  parties  35 


286  Calhoun. 

of  the  North,  with  the  full  knowledge  of  the  fact, 
although  disavowing  the  cbolitionists,  have  co-operated 
with  them  in  almost  all  their  measures. 

Such  is  a  brief  history  of  the  agitation,  as  far  as  it 
5  has  yet  advanced.  Now  I  ask,  Senators,  what  is  there 
to  prevent  its  further  progress,  until  it  fulfils  the  ulti- 
mate end  proposed,  unless  some  decisive  measure  should 
be  adopted  to  prevent  it  ?  Has  any  one  of  the  causes, 
which  has  added  to  its  increase  from  its  original  small 

10  and  contemptible  beginning  until  it  has  attained  its 
present  magnitude,  diminished  in  force  ?  Is  the  original 
cause  of  the  movement — that  slavery  is  a  sin,  and 
ought  to  be  suppressed — weaker  now  than  at  the  com- 
mencement ?     Or  is  the  abolition  party  less  numerous  or 

15  influential,  or  have  they  less  influence  with,  or  control 
over,  the  two  great  parties  of  the  North  in  elections? 
Or  has  the  South  greater  means  of  influencing  or  con- 
trolling the  movements  of  this  government  now,  than  it 
had  when  the  agitation  commenced  ?    To  all  these  ques- 

20  tions  but  one  answer  can  be  given  :  No  —  no  —  no.  The 
very  reverse  is  true.  Instead  of  being  weaker,  all  the 
elements  in  favor  of  agitation  are  stronger  now  than 
they  were  in  1835,  when  it  first  commenced,  while  all 
the  elements  of  influence  on  the  part  of  the  South  are 

25  weaker.  Unless  something  decisive  is  done,  I  again  ask, 
what  is  to  stop  this  agitation  before  the  great  and  final 
object  at  which  it  aims  —  the  abolition  of  slavery  in  the 
States  —  is  consummated  ?  Is  it,  then,  not  certain  that 
if  something  is  not  done  to  arrest  it,  the  South  will  be 

30  forced  to  choose  between  abolition  and  secession  ?  In- 
deed, as  events  are  now  moving,  it  will  not  require  the 
South  to  secede,  in  order  to  dissolve  the  Union.  Agita- 
tion will  of  itself  effect  it,  of  which  its  past  history 
furnishes  abundant  proof  —  as  I  shall  next  proceed  to 

35  show. 


On  the  Slavery  Question,  287 

It  is  a  great  mistake  to  suppose  that  disunion  can  be 
effected  by  a  single  blow.  The  cords  which  bind  these 
States  together  in  one  common  Union,  are  far  too  numer- 
ous and  powerful  for  that.  Disunion  must  be  the  work 
of  time.  It  is  only  through  a  long  process,  and  succes-  5 
sively,  that  the  cords  can  be  snapped,  until  the  whole 
fabric  falls  asunder.  Already  the  agitation  of  the  slavery 
question  has  snapped  some  of  the  most  important,  and 
has  greatly  weakened  all  the  others,  as  I  shall  proceed 
to  show.  10 

The  cords  that  bind  the  States  together  are  not  only 
many,  but  various  in  character.  Some  are  spiritual  or 
ecclesiastical ;  some  political ;  others  social.  Some  ap- 
pertain to  the  benefit  conferred  by  the  Union,  and  others 
to  the  feeling  of  duty  and  obligation.  16 

The  strongest  of  those  of  a  spiritual  and  ecclesiastical 
nature,  consisted  in  the  unity  of  the  great  religious 
denominations,  all  of  which  originally  embraced  the 
whole  Union.  All  these  denominations,  with  the  excep- 
tion, perhaps,  of  the  Catholics,  were  organized  very  20 
much  upon  the  principle  of  our  political  institutions. 
Beginning  with  smaller  meetings  corresix)nding  with  the 
political  divisions  of  the  country,  their  organization  ter- 
minated in  one  great  central  assemblage  corresponding 
very  much  with  the  character  of  Congress.  At  these  25 
meetings  the  principal  clergymen  and  lay  members  of 
the  respective  denominations  from  all  parts  of  the  Union, 
met  to  transact  business  relating  to  their  common  con- 
cerns. It  was  not  confined  to  what  api)ertained  to  the 
doctrines  and  discipline  of  the  respective  denominations,  ao 
but  extended  to  plans  for  disseminating  the  Bible, 
establishing  missions,  distributing  tracts  —  and  of  estab- 
lishing presses  for  the  publication  of  tracts,  newspapers, 
and  periodicals,  with  a  view  of  diffusing  religious  infor- 
mation —  and  for  the  support  of  their  respective  doc-  as 


288  Calhoun. 

trines  and  creeds.  All  this  combined  contributed  greatly 
to  strengthen  the  bonds  of  the  Union.  The  ties  which 
held  each  denomination  together  formed  a  strong  cord 
to  hold  the  whole  Union  together,  but,  powerful  as  they 

5  were,  they  have  not  been  able  to  resist  the  explosive 
effect  of  slavery  agitation. 

The  first  of  these  cords  which  snapped  under  its  ex- 
plosive force,  was  that  of  the  powerful  Methodist  Episco- 
pal Church.     The  numerous  and  strong  ties  which  lield 

10  it  together,  are  all  broken,  and  its  unity  is  gone.  They 
now  form  separate  churches ;  and,  instead  of  that  feeling 
of  attachment  and  devotion  to  the  interests  of  the  wliole 
church  which  was  formerly  felt,  they  are  now  arrayed 
into  two  hostile  bodies,  engaged  in  litigation  about  what 

15  was  formerly  their  common  property. 

The  next  cord  that  snapped  was  that  of  the  Baptists 
—  one  of  the  largest  and  most  respectable  of  the  de- 
nominations. That  of  the  Presbyterian  is  not  entirely 
snapped,  but  some  of  its  strands  have  given  way.     That 

20  of  the  Episcopal  Church  is  the  only  one  of  the  four 
great  Protestant  denominations  which  remains  unbroken 
and  entire. 

The  strongest  cord  of  a  political  character,  consists  of 
the  many  and  powerful  ties  that  have  held  together  the 

25  two  great  parties  which  have,  with  some  modifications, 
existed  from  the  beginning  of  the  government.  They 
both  extended  to  every  portion  of  the  Union,  and 
strongly  contributed  to  hold  all  its  parts  together.  But 
this  powerful  cord  has  fared  no  better  than  the  spiritual. 

30  It  resisted  for  a  long  time  the  explosive  tendency  of  the 
agitation,  but  has  finally  snapped  under  its  force  —  if 
not  entirely,  in  a  great  measure.  Nor  is  there  one  of  the 
remaining  cords  which  has  not  been  greatly  weakened. 
To  this  extent  the  Union  has  already  been  destroyed  by 

35  agitation,  in  the  only  way  it  can  be,  by  sundering  and 
weakening  the  cords  which  bind  it  together. 


On  the  Slavery  Question*  289 

li  tia  agitation  goes  on,  the  same  force,  acting  with 
increased  intensity,  as  has  been  shown,  will  finally  snap 
every  cord,  when  nothing  will  be  left  to  hold  the  States 
together  except  force.  But,  surely,  that  can  with  no 
})ropriety  of  language  be  called  a  Union,  when  the  only  5 
means  by  which  the  weaker  is  held  connected  with  the 
stronger  portion  is  force.  It  may,  indeed,  keep  them 
connected ;  but  the  connection  will  partake  much  more 
of  the  character  of  subjugation,  on  the  part  of  the 
weaker  to  the  stronger,  than  the  union  of  free,  indepen-  lO 
ileut,  and  sovereign  States,  in  one  confederation,  as  they 
stood  in  the  early  stages  of  the  government,  and  which 
only  is  worthy  of  the  sacred  name  of  Union. 

Having  now,  Senators,  explained  what  it  is  that 
cndangt^rs  the  Union,  and  traced  it  to  its  cause,  and  ir» 
explained  its  nature  and  character,  the  question  again 
recurs  —  How  can  the  Union  be  saved  ?  To  this  I 
answer,  there  is  but  one  way  by  which  it  can  be,  and  that 
is  by  adopting  such  measures  as  will  satisfy  the  States 
l>elonging  to  the  Southern  section,  that  they  can  remain  20 
in  the  Union  consistently  with  their  honor  and  their 
safety.  There  is,  again,  only  one  way  by  which  this  can 
be  effected,  and  that  is  by  removing  the  causes  by  which 
this  belief  hius  been  ])roduced.  Do  this,  and  discontent 
will  cease,  harmony  and  kind  feelings  l)etween  the  sec-  25 
tions  be  restored,  and  every  apprehension  of  danger  to 
the  Union  removed.  The  question,  then,  is  —  How  can 
tliis  l)e  done  ?  But,  before  I  undertake  to  answer  this 
question,  I  proi)08e  to  show  by  what  the  Union  cannot  be 
saved.  30 

It  cannot,  tlien,  be  saved  by  eulogies  on  the  Union, 
however  8[)lendid  or  numerous.  The  cry  of  "  Union, 
Union,  the  glorious  Union ! "  can  no  more  prevent  dis- 
union than  the  cry  of  "Health,  health,  glorious  health  I" 
on  the  part  of  the  physician,  can  save  a  jiatient  lying  35 


290  Calhoun. 

dangerously  ill.  So  long  as  the  Union,  instead  of  being  re- 
garded as  a  protector,  is  regarded  in  the  opposite  char- 
acter, by  not  much  less  than  a  majority  of  the  States,  it 
will  be  in  vain  to  attempt  to  conciliate  them  by  pronoun- 

5  cing  eulogies  on  it. 

Besides,  this  cry  of  Union  comes  commonly  from  those 
whom  we  cannot  believe  to  be  sincere.  It  usually  comes 
from  our  assailants.  But  we  cannot  believe  them  to  be 
sincere ;  for,  if  they  loved  the  Union,  they  would  neces- 

10  sarily  be  devoted  to  the  Constitution.  It  made  the 
Union,  —  and  to  destroy  the  Constitution  would  be  to 
destroy  the  Union.  But  the  only  reliable  and  certain 
evidence  of  devotion  to  the  Constitution  is  to  abstain, 
on  the  one  hand,  from  violating  it,  and  to  repel,  on  the 

15  other,  all  attempts  to  violate  it.  It  is  only  by  faithfully 
performing  these  high  duties  that  the  Constitution  can 
be  preserved,  and  with  it  the  Union. 

But  how  stands  the  profession  of  devotion  to  the 
Union  by  our  assailants,  when  brought  to  this  test? 

20  Have  they  abstained  from  violating  the  Constitution  ? 
Let  the  many  acts  passed  by  the  i^orthern  States  to  set 
aside  and  annul  the  clause  of  the  Constitution  providing 
for  the  delivery  up  of  fugitive  slaves  answer.  I  cite 
this,  not  that  it  is  the  only  instance  (for  there  are  many 

25  others),  but  because  the  violation  in  this  particular  is  too 
notorious  and  palpable  to  be  denied.  Again :  Have  they 
stood  forth  faithfully  to  repel  violations  of  the  Constitu- 
tion? Let  their  course  in  reference  to  the  agitation 
of  the  slavery  question,  which  was  commenced  and  has 

30  been  carried  on  for  fifteen  years,  avowedly  for  the  pur- 
pose of  abolishing  slavery  in  the  States  —  an  object  all 
acknowledged  to  be  unconstitutional  —  answer.  Let 
them  show  a  single  instance,  during  this  long  period, 
in  which   they  have  denounced   the  agitators  or  their 

35  attempts  to  effect   wliat  is  admitted  to  be  unconstitu- 


On  the  Slavery  Question,  291 

tional,  or  a  single  measure  which  they  have  brought  for- 
ward for  that  purpose.  How  can  we,  with  all  these 
facts  before  us,  believe  that  they  are  sincere  in  their 
profession  of  devotion  to  the  Union,  or  avoid  believing 
their  profession  is  but  intended  to  increase  the  vigor  of  5 
their  assaults  and  to  weaken  the  force  of  our  resistance  ? 

Nor  can  we  regard  the  profession  of  devotion  to  the 
Union,  on  the  part  of  those  who  are  not  our  assailants, 
as  sincere,  when  they  pronounce  eulogies  ujx)n  the 
Tuion,  evidently  with  the  intent  of  charging  us  with  10 
disunion,  without  uttering  one  word  of  denunciation 
against  our  assailants.  If  friends  of  the  Union,  their 
course  should  be  to  unite  with  us  in  repelling  these 
assaults,  and  denouncing  the  authors  as  enemies  of  the 
Tnion.  Why  they  avoid  this,  and  pursue  the  course  15 
they  do,  it  is  for  them  to  explain. 

Nor  can  the  Union  be  saved  by  invoking  the  name  of 
the  illustrious  Southerner  whose  mortal  remains  repose 
on  the  western  bank  of  the  Potomac.  He  was  one  of  us 
—  a  slave-holder  and  a  planter.  We  have  studied  his  20 
history,  and  find  nothing  in  it  to  justify  submission  to 
wrong.  On  the  contrary,  his  great  fame  rests  on  the 
solid  foundation  that,  while  he  was  careful  to  avoid 
doing  wrong  to  others,  he  was  prompt  and  decided  in 
reijelling  wrong.  I  trust  that,  in  this  res])ect,  we  profited  25 
hy  his  example. 

Nor  can  we  find  anything  in  his  history  to  deter  us 
from  seceding  from  the  Union,  should  it  fail  to  fulfil  the 
objects  for  which  it  was  instituted,  by  being  permanently 
and  hopelessly  converted  into  the  means  of  oppressing  so 
instead  of  protecting  us.  On  the  contrary,  we  find  much 
in  his  example  to  encourage  us,  should  we  be  forced  to 
the  extremity  of  decidini?  between  submission  and  dis- 
union. 

riitrr  i\i>U'd  tlien,  as  well  as  now,  a  union — that  S5 


292  Calhoun, 

between  the  parent  country  and  her  then  Colonies.  It 
was  a  union  that  had  much  to  endear  it  to  the  people  of 
the  Colonies.  Under  its  protecting  and  superintending 
care,  the  Colonies  were  planted  and  grew  up  and  pros- 
5  pered  through  a  long  course  of  years,  until  they  became 
populous  and  wealthy.  Its  benefits  were  not  limited  to 
them.  Their  extensive  agricultural  and  other  produc- 
tions gave  birth  to  a  flourishing  commerce,  wliich  richly 
rewarded  the  parent  country  for  the  trouble  and  expense 

10  of  establishing  and  protecting  them.  Washington  was 
born  and  grew  up  to  manhood  under  that  union.  He 
acquired  his  early  distinction  in  its  service,  and  there  is 
every  reason  to  believe  that  he  was  devotedly  attached 
to  it.     But  his  devotion  was  a  rational  one.     He  was 

15  attached  to  it,  not  as  an  end,  but  as  a  means  to  an  end. 
When  it  failed  to  fulfil  its  end,  and,  instead  of  affording 
protection,  was  converted  into  tlie  means  of  oppressing 
the  Colonies,  he  did  not  hesitate  to  draw  his  sword,  and 
head  the  great  movement  by  which  that  union  was  for- 

20  ever  severed,  and  the  independence  of  these  States  estab- 
lished. This  was  the  great  and  crowning  glory  of  his 
life,  which  has  spread  his  fame  over  the  whole  globe,  and 
will  transmit  it  to  the  latest  posterity. 

Nor  can  the  plan  proposed  by  the  distinguished   sen- 

25  ator  from  Kentucky,  nor  that  of  the  administration,  save 
the  Union.  I  shall  pass  by,  without  remark,  the  plan 
proposed  by  the  senator,  and  proceed  directly  to  the  con- 
sideration of  that  of  the  administration.  I,  however, 
assure  the  distinguished  and  -able  senator,  that,  in  taking 

30  this  course,  no  disrespect  whatever  is  intended  to  him 
or  his  plan.  I  have  adopted  it  because  so  many  senators 
of  distinguished  abilities,  who  were  present  when  he  de- 
livered his  speech  and  explained  his  plan,  and  who  were 
fully  capable  to  do  justice  to  the  side  they  support,  have 

35  replied  to  him. 


On  the  Slavery  Question.  293 

The  plan  of  the  administration  cannot  save  the  Union, 
l)eeause  it  can  have  no  effect  whatever  towards  satisfying 
the  States  composing  the  Southern  section  of  the  Union, 
that  they  can,  consistently  with  safety  and  honor,  remain 
in  the  Union.  It  is,  in  fact,  but  a  modification  of  the  6 
W'ilniot  Proviso.  It  proposes  to  effect  the  same  object, 
—  to  exclude  the  South  from  all  the  territory  acquired 
by  the  Mexican  treaty.  It  is  well  known  that  the  South 
is  united  against  the  Wilmot  Proviso,  and  has  committed 
itself  by  solemn  resolutions  to  resist,  should  it  be  adopted.  10 
1  ts  opposition  is  not  to  the  name,  but  that  which  it  pro- 
lK)ses  to  effect.  That,  the  Southern  States  hold  to  be 
unconstitutional,  unjust,  inconsistent  with  their  equality 
as  members  of  the  common  Union,  and  calculated  to 
destroy  irretrievably  the  equilibrium  between  the  two  15 
'ctious.  These  objections  equally  apply  to  what,  for 
levity,  I  will  call  the  Executive  Proviso.  There  is  no 
difference  between  it  and  the  Wilmot,  except  in  the 
mode  of  effecting  the  object ;  and  in  that  resi)ect,  I  must 
say  that  the  latter  is  much  the  least  objectionable.  It  20 
goes  to  its  object  openly,  boldly,  and  distinctly-.  It 
claims  for  Congress  unlimited  power  over  the  territories, 
and  proposes  to  assert  it  over  the  territories  acquired 
from  Mexico,  by  a  positive  prohibition  of  slavery.  Not  so 
t  lie  Executive  Proviso.  It  takes  an  indirect  course,  and  25 
in  order  to  elude  the  Wilmot  Proviso,  and  thereby  avoid 
encountering  the  united  and  determined  resistance  of  the 
South,  it  denies,  by  implication,  the  authority  of  Congress 
to  legislate  for  the  territories,  and  claims  the  right  as 
belonging  exclusively  to  the  inhabitants  of  the  territories.  30 
lUit  to  effect  the  object  of  excluding  the  South,  it  takes 
care,  in  the  meantime,  to  let  in  emigrants  freely  from  the 
Northern  States  and  all  other  quarters  except  fr<mi  the 
>uth,  whi(!h  it  t'lkes  sjH'cial  care  to  exclude  by  hoUling 
i*p  to  them  the  danger  of  liaving  tl^'i'-  <i.\.>^  lilnM-ated  35 


294  Calhoun, 

under  the  Mexican  laws.  The  necessary  consequence  is 
to  exclude  the  South  from  the  territory  just  as  effectu- 
ally as  would  the  Wilmot  Proviso.  The  only  difference 
in  this  respect  is,  that  what  one  proposes  to  effect  directly 

6  and  openly,  the  other  proposes  to  effect  indirectly  and 
covertly. 

But  the  Executive  Proviso  is  more  objectionable  than 
the  Wilmot  in  another  and  more  important  partic- 
ular.  ...   In  claiming  the  right  for  the  inliabitants, 

10  instead  of  Congress,  to  legislate  for  the  territories,  the 
Executive  Proviso  assumes  that  the  sovereignty  over 
the  territories  is  vested  in  the  former ;  or,  to  express  it 
in  the  language  used  in  a  resolution  offered  by  one  of  the 
Senators  from  Texas   (General  Houston,   now  absent), 

16  they  have  "  the  same  inherent  right  of  self-government 
as  the  people  in  the  States."  The  assumption  is  utterly 
unfounded,  unconstitutional,  without  example,  and  con- 
trary to  the  entire  practice  of  the  government,  from  its 
commencement  to  the  present  time.   .   .   . 

20  [As  a  striking  example  of  what  such  doctrine  as  this  will  lead 
to,  Mr.  Calhomi  takes  up  the  case  of  California,  then  seeking  ad- 
mission as  a  State.  The  organization  of  a  State  government  there, 
and  the  appointment  of  senators  and  representatives  by  the 
inhabitants  of  that  region,  without  having  first  been  clothed  by 

25  Congress  with  authority  for  these  acts,  he  characterizes  as  "  revo- 
lutionary and  rebellious  in  its  character,  anarchical  in  its  tendency, 
and  calculated  to  lead  to  the  most  dangerous  consequences." 
And  for  it  he  blames  most  of  all  the  Executive  branch  of  the 
government,  which  openly  advocates  the  doctrine  in  question, 

30  and  has  openly  abetted  these  proceedings.] 

Having  now  shown  what  cannot   save   the  Union,  I 

return  to  the  question  with  which  I  commenced,  —  How 

can  the  Union  be  saved  ?     There  is  but  one  way  by  which 

it  can  with  any  certainty ;  and  that  is,  by  a  full  and 

35  final  settlement,  on   tlie   principle  of  justice,  of  all  the 


On  the  Slavery  Question.  295 

questions  at  issue  between  the  two  sections.     The  South 
ks  for  justice,  simple  justice,  and  less  she  ought  not  to 
uike.     She  has  no  compromise  to  offer  but  the  Constitu- 
tion ;  and  no  concession  or  surrender  to  make.     She  has 
already  surrendered  so  much  that  she  has  little  left  to  5 
surrender.     Such  a  settlement  would  go  to  the  root  of  the 
evil,  and  remove  all  cause  of  discontent,  by  satisfying 
the  South  that  she  could  remain  honorably  and  safely  in 
the  Union,  and  thereby  restore  the  harmony  and  frater- 
nal feelings  between  the  sections,  which  existed  anterior  lo 
to  the  Missouri  agitation.     Nothing  else  can,  with  any 
ct'itainty,  finally  and  forever  settle  the  question  at  issue, 
rininate  agitation,  and  save  the  Union. 
But  can  this  be  done  ?    Yes,  easily ;  not  by  the  weaker 
party,  for  it  can  of  itself  do  nothing — not  even  protect  15 
itself  —  but   by  the  stronger.     The  North  has  only  to 
will  it  to  accomplish  it  —  to  do  justice  by  conceding  to 
the  South  an  equal  right  in  the  acquired  territory,  and 
to  do  her  duty  by  causing  the  stipulations  relative  to 
fugitive  slaves  to  be  faithfully  fulfilled  —  to  cease  the  20 
agitation  of  the  slave  question,  and  to  provide  for  the  in- 
sertion of  a  provision  in  the  Constitution,  by  an  amend- 
ment, which  will   restore  to  the   South,   in  substance, 
the  power  she  possessed  of  protecting  herself,  before  the 
equilibrium  between  the  sections  was  destroyed  by  the  25 
action  of  this  government.    There  will  l)e  no  difficulty 
in  devising  such  a  provision  —  one  that  will  protect  the 
South,  and  which,  at  the  same  time,  will  improve  and 
strengthen  the  government,  instead  of  impairing  and 
weakening  it  30 

But  will  the  North  agree  to  this  ?    It  is  for  her  to 
iswer  the  question.     But,  I  will  say,  she  cannot  refuse, 
she  has  half  the  love  of  the  Union  which  she  pro- 
fesses to  have,  or  without  justly  exposing  herself  to  the 
r*harge  that  her  love  of  power  and  aggrandizement  is  far  35 


296  Calhoun. 

greater  than  her  love  of  the  Union.  At  all  events,  the 
responsibility  of  saving  the  Union  rests  on  the  North, 
and  not  on  the  South.  The  South  cannot  save  it  by  any 
act  of  hers,  and  the  North  may  save  it  without  any  sac- 
5  lifice  whatever,  unless  to  do  justice,  and  to  perform  her 
duties  under  the  Constitution,  should  be  regarded  by 
her  as  a  sacrifice. 

It  is  time.  Senators,  that  there  should  be  an  open  and 
manly  avowal  on  all  sides,  as  to  what  is  intended  to  be 

10  done.  If  the  question  is  not  now  settled,  it  is  uncertain 
whether  it  ever  can  hereafter  be ;  and  we,  as  the  repre- 
sentatives of  the  States  of  this  Union  regarded  as  gov- 
ernments, should  come  to  a  distinct  understanding  as  to 
our  resi)ective  views,  in  order  to  ascertain  whether  the 

15  great  questions  at  issue  can  be  settled  or  not.  If  you, 
who  represent  the  stronger  iK)rtion,  cannot  agree  to  settle 
them  on  the  broad  principle  of  justice  and  duty,  say  so ; 
and  let  the  States  we  both  represent  agree  to  separate 
and  part  in  peace.     If  you  are  unwilling  we  should  part 

20  in  peace,  tell  us  so ;  and  we  shall  know  what  to  do  when 
you  reduce  the  question  to  submission  or  resistance.  If 
you  remain  silent,  you  will  compel  us  to  infer  by  your 
acts  what  you  intend.  In  that  case,  California  will  be- 
come the  test  question.     If  you  admit  her  under  all  the 

25  difficulties  that  oppose  her  admission,  you  compel  us  to 
infer  that  you  intend  to  exclude  us  from  the  whole  of 
the  acquired  territories,  with  the  intention  of  destroying 
irretrievably  the  equilibrium  between  the  two  sections. 
We  should  be  blind  not  to  perceive  in  that  case,  that 

30  your  real  objects  are  power  and  aggrandizement,  and  in- 
fatuated, not  to  act  accordingly. 

I  have  now,  Senators,  done  my  duty  in  expressing  my 
opinions  fully,  freely,  and  candidly,  on  this  solemn  occa- 
sion.    In  doing  so,  I  have  been  governed  by  the  motives 

?5  which  have  governed  me  in  all  the  stages  of  the  agita- 


On  the  Slavery  Question.  297 

tion  of  the  slavery  question  since  its  commencement.  1 
have  exerted  myself  during  the  whole  period  to  arrest 
it,  with  the  intention  of  saving  the  Union,  if  it  could  be 
tlone;  and  if  it  could  not,  to  save  the  section  where  it 
lias  pleaseil  Providence  to  cast  my  lot,  and  which  I  sin-  5 
iMM-ely  believe  has  justice  and  the  Constitution  on  its 
ule.  Having  faithfully  done  my  duty  to  the  best  of 
i.iy  ability,  both  to  the  Union  and  my  section,  through- 
out this  agitation,  I  shall  have  the  consolation,  let  what 
will  come,  that  I  am  free  from  all  responsibility. 


WILLIAM    H.    SEWARD 


ON    THE    IKRErRESSIBLE   CONFLICT;    ROCHESTER, 
OCTOBER,   25,    1868. 


The  unmistakable  outbreaks  of  zeal  which  occur  all 
around  me,  show  that  you  are  earnest  men  —  and  such  a 
man  am  I.  Let  us  therefore,  at  least  for  a  time,  pass  all 
secondary  and  collateral  questions,  whether  of  a  personal 
6  or  of  a  general  nature,  and  consider  the  main  subject 
of  the  present  canvass.  The  Democratic  party  —  or, 
to  speak  more  accurately,  the  party  which  wears  that 
attractive  name — is  in  possession  of  the  Federal  Grov- 
emment.      The   Republicans   propose   to  dislodge  that 

10  party,  and  dismiss  it  from  its  high  trust. 

The  main  subject,  then,  is,  whether  the  Democratic 
party  deserves  to  retain  the  confidence  of  the  American 
people.  In  attempting  to  prove  it  unworthy,  I  think 
that  I  am  not  actuated  by  prejudices  against  that  party, 

15  or  by  prepossessions  in  favor  of  its  adversary ;  for  I  have 
learned  by  some  experience  that  virtue  and  patriotism, 
vice  and  selfishness,  are  found  in  all  parties,  and  that 
they  differ  less  in  their  motives  than  in  the  policies  they 
pursue. 

20  Our  country  is  a  theatre  which  exhibits,  in  full  opera- 
tion, two  radically  different  political  systems ;  the  one 
resting  on  the  basis  of  servile  or  slave  labor,  the  other 
on  the  basis  of  voluntary  labor  of  freemen. 

298 


On  the  lrrepre%fible  Conflict,  299 

The  laborers  who  are  enslaved  are  all  negroes,  or  per- 
sons more  or  less  purely  of  African  derivation.  But  this 
is  only  accidental.  The  principle  of  the  system  is,  that 
labor  in  every  society,  by  whomsoever  performed,  is 
necessarily  unintellectual,  grovelling,  and  base ;  and  that  5 
the  laborer,  equally  for  his  own  good  and  for  the  welfare 
of  the  State,  ought  to  be  enslaved.  The  white  laboring 
man,  whether  native  or  foreigner,  is  not  enslaved,  only 
because  he  cannot,  as  yet,  be  reduced  to  bondage. 

You  need  not  be  told  now  that  the  slave  system  is  the  lo 
older  of  the  two,  and  that  once  it  was  universal.  The 
emancipation  of  our  own  ancestors,  Caucasians  and  Euro- 
peans as  they  were,  hardly  dates  beyond  a  period  of  five 
hundred  years.  The  great  melioration  of  human  society 
which  modern  times  exhibit,  is  mainly  due  to  the  incom- 16 
plete  substitution  of  the  system  of  voluntary  laVx)r  for  the 
old  one  of  servile  labor,  which  has  already  taken  place. 
I'iiis  African  slave  system  is  one  which,  in  its  origin  and 
in  its  growth,  has  been  altogether  foreign  from  the  habits 
of  the  races  which  colonized  these  States,  and  established  20 
civilization  here.  It  was  introduced  on  this  new  con- 
tinent as  an  engine  of  conquest,  and  for  the  establish- 
ment of  monarchical  power,  by  the  Portuguese  and  the 
Spaniards,  and  was  rapidly  extended  by  them  all  ovef 
South  America,  Central  America,  Louisiana,  and  Mexico.  26 
I  ts  legitimate  fruits  are  seen  in  the  poverty,  imbecility, 
and  anarchy  which  now  pervade  all  Portuguese  and 
Spanish  America.  The  free-labor  system  is  of  German 
extraction,  and  it  was  established  in  our  country  by  emi- 
grants from  Sweden,  Holland,  Germany,  Great  Britain,  30 
and  Ireland.  We  justly  ascribe  to  its  influences  the 
strength,  wealth,  greatness,  intelligence,  and  freedom, 
which  the  whole  American  people  now  enjoy.  One  of 
t  he  chief  elements  of  the  value  of  human  life  is  freedom 
in  the  pursuit  of  happiness.    The  slave  system  is  not  35 


300  Seward, 

only  intolerable,  unjust,  and  inhuman  towards  the  laborer, 
whom,  only  because  he  is  a  laborer,  it  loads  down  with 
chains  and  converts  into  merchandise ;  but  is  scarcely  less 
severe  upon  the  freeman,  to  whom,  only  because  he  is  a 

5  laborer  from  necessity,  it  denies  facilities  for  employ- 
ment, and  whom  it  expels  from  the  community  because 
it  cannot  enslave  and  convert  him  into  merchandise  also. 
It  is  necessarily  improvident  and  ruinous,  because,  as  a 
general  truth,  communities  prosi)er  and  flourish,  or  droop 

10  and  decline,  in  just  the  degree  that  they  practise  or 
neglect  to  practise  the  primary  duties  of  justice  and 
humanity.  The  free-labor  system  conforms  to  the  divine 
law  of  equality  which  is  written  in  the  hearts  and  con- 
sciences of  men,  and  therefore  is  always  and  everywhere 

15  beneficent. 

The  slave  system  is  one  of  constant  danger,  distrust, 
suspicion,  and  watchfulness.  It  debases  those  whose 
toil  alone  can  produce  wealth  and  resources  for  defence, 
to  the  lowest  degree  of  which  human  nature  is  capable, 

20  to  guard  against  mutiny  and  insurrection,  and  thus 
wastes  energies  which  otherwise  might  be  employed 
in  national  development  and  aggrandizement. 

The  free-labor  system  educates  all  alike,  and  by  open- 
ing all  the  fields  of  industrial  employment,  and  all  the 

25  departments  of  authority,  to  the  unchecked  and  equal 
rivalry  of  all  classes  of  men,  at  once  secures  universal 
contentment,  and  brings  into  the  highest  possible  activity 
all  the  physical,  moral,  and  social  energies  of  the  whole 
state.     In  states  where  the  slave  system  prevails,  the 

30  masters,  directly  or  indirectly,  secure  aU  political  power, 
and  constitute  a  ruling  aristocracy.  In  states  where  the 
free-labor  system  prevails,  universal  suffrage  necessarily 
obtains,  and  the  state  inevitably  becomes,  sooner  or  later, 
a  republic  or  democracy. 

35      Russia   yet  maintains  slavery,   and  is  a  despotism. 


(hi  the  Irrepressible   Conflict.  301 

Most  of  the  other  European  states  have  abolished 
slavery,  and  adopted  the  system  of  free  labor.  It  was 
the  antagonistic  political  tendencies  of  the  two  systems 
which  the  first  Nai)oleon  was  contemplating  when  he 
predicted  that  Europe  would  ultimately  be  either  all  5 
Cossack  or  all  republican.  Never  did  human  sagacity 
utter  a  more  pregnant  tnith.  The  two  systems  are  at 
once  perceived  to  be  incongruous.  But  they  are  more 
than  incongruous  —  they  are  incompatible.  They  never 
have  permanently  existed  together  in  one  country,  and  lo 
they  never  can.  It  would  be  easy  to  demonstrate  this 
impossibility  from  the  irreconcilable  contrast  between 
their  great  principles  and  characteristics.  But  the  ex- 
perience of  mankind  has  conclusively  established  it. 
Slavery,  as  I  have  already  intimated,  existed  in  every  15 
state  in  Europe.  Free  labor  has  supplanted  it  every- 
where except  in  Russia  and  Turkey.  State  necessities 
developed  in  modern  times  are  now  obliging  even  those 
two  nations  to  encourage  and  employ  free  labor;  and 
already,  despotic  as  they  are,  we  find  them  engaged  in  20 
abolishing  slavery.  In  the  United  States,  slavery  came 
into  collision  with  free  labor  at  the  close  of  the  last 
century,  and  fell  before  it  in  New  England,  New  York, 
Xew  Jersey,  and  Pennsylvania,  but  triumphed  over  it 
t'tTectually,  and  excluded  it  for  a  i)eriod  yet  undetermined,  25 
from  Virginia,  the  Carolinas,  and  Georgia.  Indeed,  so 
i incompatible  are  the  two  systems,  that  every  new  State 
which  is  organized  within  our  ever-extending  domain 
makes  its  first  political  act  a  choice  of  the  one  and  the 
exclusion  of  the  other,  even  at  the  cost  of  civil  war  if  no 
necessary.  The  slave  States,  without  law,  at  the  last 
national  election  successfully  forbade,  within  their  own 
limits,  even  the  casting  of  votes  for  a  candidate  for  Presi- 
dent of  the  United  States  supposed  to  be  favorable  to  the 
establishment  of  the  free-labor  system  in  new  States.       35 


302  Seward. 

Hitherto,  the  two  systems  have  existed  in  different 
States,  but  side  by  side  within  the  American  Union. 
This  has  happened  because  the  Union  is  a  confederation 
of  States.     But  in  another  aspect  the  United  States  con- 

6  stitute  only  one  nation.  Increase  of  population,  which 
is  filling  the  States  out  to  their  very  borders,  together 
with  a  new  and  extended  net-work  of  railroads  and  other 
avenues,  and  an  internal  commerce  which  daily  becomes 
more  intimate,   is   rapidly  bringing  the   States   into  a 

10  higher  and  more  perfect  social  unity  or  consolidation. 
Thus,  these  antagonistic  systems  are  continually  coming 
into  closer  contact,  and  collision  results. 

Shall  I  tell  you  what  this  collision  means?  They 
who  think  that  it  is  accidental,  unnecessary,  the  work 

15  of  interested  or  fanatical  agitators,  and  therefore  ephem- 
eral, mistake  the  case  altogether.  It  is  an  irrepressible 
conflict  between  opposing  and  enduring  forces,  and  it 
means  that  the  United  States  must  and  will,  sooner  or 
later,  become  either  entirely  a  slave-holding  nation,  or 

30  entirely  a  free-labor  nation.  Either  the  cotton  and  rice- 
fields  of  South  Carolina  and  the  sugar  plantations  of 
Louisiana  will  ultimately  be  tilled  by  free  labor,  and 
Charleston  and  New  Orleans  become  marts  for  legitimate 
merchandise  alone,  or  else  the  rye-fields  and  wheat-fields  of 

25  Massachusetts  and  New  York  must  again  be  surrendered 
by  their  farmers  to  slave  culture  and  to  the  production 
of  slaves,  and  Boston  and  New  York  become  once  more 
markets  for  trade  in  the  bodies  and  souls  of  men.  It  is 
the  failure  to  apprehend  this  great  truth  that  induces  so 

30  many  unsuccessful  attempts  at  final  compromise  between 
the  slave  and  free  States,  and  it  is  the  existence  of  this 
great  fact  that  renders  all  such  pretended  compromises, 
when  made,  vain  and  ephemeral.  Startling  as  this  say- 
ing may  appear  to  you,  fellow  citizens,  it  is  by  no  means 

35  an  original  or  even  a  modem  one.     Our  forefathers  knew 


Chi  the  Irrepressible   Conflict.  803 

it  to  be  true,  and  unanimously  acted  upon  it  when  they 
fmmed  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States.  They 
regarded  the  existence  of  the  servile  system  in  so  many 
of  the  States  with  sorrow  and  shame  which  they  oj^enly 
confessed,  and  they  looked  upon  the  collision  between  6 
them,  which  was  then  just  revealing  itself,  and  which 
we  are  now  accustomed  to  deplore,  with  favor  and  hope. 
They  knew  that  either  the  one  or  the  other  system  must 
exclusively  prevail. 

Unlike  too  many  of  those  who  in  modern  time  invoke  10 
their  authority,  they  had  a  choice  between  the  two. 
They  preferred  the  system  of  free  labor,  and  they  deter- 
mined to  organize  the  government,  and  so  to  direct  its 
activity,  that  that  system  should  surely  and  certainly 
prevail.  For  this  purpose,  and  no  other,  they  based  the  15 
whole  structure  of  government  broadly  on  the  principle 
that  all  men  are  created  equal,  and  therefore  free  — 
little  dreaming  that  within  the  short  period  of  one  hun- 
dred years  their  descendants  would  bear  to  be  told  by 
any  orator,  however  popular,  that  the  utterance  of  that  20 
principle  was  merely  a  rhetorical  rhapsody ;  or  by  any 
judge,  however  venerated,  that  it  was  attended  by  mental 
reservations,  which  rendered  it  hyix)critical  and  false. 
Hy  the  ordinance  of  1787,  they  dedicated  all  of  the 
national  domain  not  yet  polluted  by  slavery  to  free  25 
labor  immediately,  thenceforth,  and  forever;  while  by 
the  new  Constitution  and  laws  they  invited  foreign  free 
labor  from  all  lands  under  the  sun,  and  interdicted  the 
importation  of  African  slave  labor,  at  all  times,  in  all 
places,  and  under  all  circumstances  whatsoever.  It  is  30 
true  that  they  necessarily  and  wisely  modified  this  policy 
of  freedom  by  leaving  it  to  the  several  States,  affected  as 
they  were  by  differing  circumstances,  to  abolisli  slavery 
in  their  own  way  and  at  their  own  pleasure,  instead  of 
confiding  that  duty  to  Congress  ^  and  that  they  secured  35 


304  Seward. 

to  the  slave  States,  while  yet  retainiiiK  the  system  of 
slavery,  a  three-fifths  representation  of  slaves  in  the 
Federal  Government,  nntil  they  should  find  themselves 
able  to  relinquish  it   with  safety.     But  the  very  nature 

6  of  these  modifications  fortifies  my  position,  tliat  the 
fathers  knew  that  the  two  systems  could  not  t  ndure 
within  th(^  Union,  and  expected  that  within  ;i  short 
period  slavery  would  disappear  forever.  Moreovci.  in 
order  that  these  modifications  might  not  altoi^ethci  lU  Icat 

10  their  grand  design  of  a  republic  maintaining,^  univtisal 
equality,  they  provided  that  two-thirds  of  the  States 
might  amend  the  Constitution. 

It  remains  to  say  on  this  jxiint  only  one  word,  to  guard 
against  misapprehension.     If  these  States  are  to  again 

15  l)ecome  universally  slave-holding,  I  do  not  ])retend  to  say 
wilh  wliat  violations  of  the  Const  itntion  that  end  shall 
be  accomplished.  On  the  other  liand,  wliih-  I  do  confi- 
dently believe  and  hope  that  my  connti y  will  yet  become 
a  land  of  universal  freedom,  I  do  not  expect  that  it  will 

20  be  made  so  otherwise  than  through  the  action  of  the 
several  States  co-operating  with  the  Federal  Government, 
and  all  acting  in  strict  conformity  with  their  respective 
constitutions. 

The  strife  and  contentions  concerning  slavery,  which 

25  gently-disposed  persons  so  habitually  deprecate,  are  noth- 
ing more  than  the  ripening  of  the  conflict  which  the 
fathers  themselves  not  only  thus  regarded  with  favor, 
but  which  they  may  be  said  to  have  instituted. 

It   is  not  to  be  denied,  however,  that   thus  far  the 

30  course  of  that  contest  has  not  been  according  to  their 
humane  anticipations  and  wishes.  In  the  field  of  federal 
politics,  slavery  —  deriving  unlooked-for  advantages  from 
commercial  changes,  and  energies  unforeseen  from  the 
facilities  of  combination  between  members  of  the  slave- 

35  holding  class  and  between  that  class  and  other  property 


On  the  Irrepressible   Conflict.  305 

classes  —  early  rallied,  and  has  at  length  made  a  stand, 
not  merely  to  retain  its  original  defensive  position,  but 
to  extend  its  sway  throughout  the  whole  Union.  It  is 
certain  that  the  slave-holding  class  of  American  citizens 
indulge  this  high  ambition,  and  that  they  derive  encour-  5 
agement  for  it  from  the  rapid  and  effective  political  suc- 
cesses which  they  have  already  obtained.  The  plan  of 
operation  is  this  :  By  continued  appliances  of  patronage 
and  threats  of  disunion,  they  will  keep  a  majority  favor- 
able to  these  designs  in  the  Senate,  where  each  State  has  lo 
equal  representation.  Through  that  majority  they  will 
defeat,  as  they  best  can,  the  admission  of  free  States  and 
secure  the  admission  of  slave  States.  Under  the  protec- 
tion of  the  judiciary,  they  will,  on  the  principle  of  the 
Dred  Scott  case,  carry  slavery  into  all  the  territories  of  15 
the  United  States  now  existing  and  hereafter  to  be  organ- 
ized. By  the  action  of  the  President  and  the  Senate,  using 
the  treaty-making  power,  they  will  annex  foreign  slave- 
holding  States.  In  a  favorable  conjuncture  they  will  in- 
duce Congress  to  repeal  the  act  of  1808,  which  prohibits  20 
the  foreign  slave-trade,  and  so  they  will  import  from 
Africa,  at  the  cost  of  only  twenty  dollars  a  head,  slaves 
enough  to  fill  up  the  interior  of  the  continent.  Thus 
relatively  increasing  the  number  of  slave  States,  they 
will  allow  no  amendment  to  the  Constitution  prejudicial  25 
to  their  interest ;  and  so,  having  permanently  established 
their  power,  they  expect  the  federal  judiciary  to  nullify 
all  State  laws  which  shall  interfere  with  internal  or 
foreign  commerce  in  slaves.  When  the  free  States  shall 
be  sufficiently  demoralized  to  tolerate  these  designs,  th^y  30 
reasonably  conclude  that  slavery  will  be  accepted  by 
those  States  themselves.  I  shall  not  stop  to  show  how 
speedy  or  how  complete  would  be  the  ruin  which  the 
accomplishment  of  these  slave-holding  schemes  would 
bring  upon  the  country.     For  one,  I  should  not  remain  36 


806  Seward. 

in  the  country  to  test  the  sad  experiment.  .  .  .  When 
that  evil  day  shall  come,  and  all  further  effort  at  resist- 
ance shall  be  impossible,  then,  if  there  be  no  better  hope 
of  redemption  than  I  can  now  foresee,  I  shall  say  with 

5  Franklin,  while  looking  abroad  over  the  whole  earth  for 
a  new  and  more  congenial  home,  "  Where  liberty  dwells, 
there  is  my  country." 

You  will  tell  me  that  these  fears  are  extravagant  and 
chimerical.     I  answer,  they  are  so ;  but  they  are  so  only 

10  because  the  designs  of  the  slave-holders  must  and  can  be 
defeated.  But  it  is  only  the  possibility  of  defeat  that 
renders  them  so.  They  cannot  be  defeated  by  inactivity. 
There  is  no  escape  from  them  compatible  with  non- 
resistance.      How,   then,   and   in   what  way,  shall  the 

16  necessary  resistance  be  made  ?  There  is  only  one  way. 
The  Democratic  party  must  be  permanently  dislodged 
from  the  government  The  reason  is,  that  the  Demo- 
cratic party  is  inextricably  committed  to  the  designs  of 
the  slave-holders,  which  I  have  described.     Let  me  be 

20  well  understood.  I  do  not  charge  that  the  Democratic 
candidates  for  public  office  now  before  the  people  are 
pledged  to  —  much  less  that  tlie  Democratic  masses  who 
support  them  really  adopt  —  those  atrocious  and  danger- 
ous designs.     Candidates  may,  and  generally  do,  mean 

25  to  act  justly,  wisely,  and  patriotically  when  they  shall 
be  elected  ;  but  they  become  the  ministers  and  servants, 
not  the  dictators,  of  the  power  which  elects  them.  .  .  . 
It  is  not  more  true  that  "hell  is  paved  with  good  inten- 
tions,"  than   it   is   that  earth   is    covered   with  wrecks 

30  resulting  from  innocent  and  amiable  motives. 

"^he  very  constitution  of  the  Democratic  party  commits 
it  to  execute  all  the  designs  of  the  slave-holders,  whatever 
they  may  be.  It  is  not  a  party  of  the  whole  Union — of 
all  the  free  States  and  of  all  the  slave  States ;  nor  yet  is 

35  it  a  party  of  the  free  States  in  the  North  and  in  the 


On  the  Irrepressible   Conflict,  807 

North- West ;  but  it  is  a  sectional  and  local  party,  having 
practically  its  seat  within  the  slave  States,  and  count- 
ing its  constituency  chiefly  and  almost  exclusively  there. 
Of  all  its  representatives  in  Congress  and  in  the  electoral 
colleges,  two-thirds  uniformly  come  from  these  States.  5 
Its  great  element  of  strength  lies  in  the  vote  of  the 
slave-holders,  augmented  by  the  representation  of  three- 
fifths  of  the  slaves.  Deprive  the  Democratic  party  of 
this  strength,  and  it  would  be  a  helpless  and  hopeless 
minority,  incapable  of  continued  organization.  The  Dem-  lo 
ocratic  party,  being  thus  local  and  sectional,  acquires 
new  strength  from  the  admission  of  every  new  slave 
State,  and  loses  relatively  by  the  admission  of  every  new 
free  State  into  the  Union. 

A  party  is  in  one  sense  a  joint  stock  association,  in  15 
which  those  who  contribute  most  direct  the  action  and 
management  of  the  concern.     The  slave-holders  contrib- 
uting in  an  overwhelming  proportion  to  the  capital  strength 
of  the  Democratic  party,  they  necessarily  dictate  and  pre- 
scribe its  policy.     The  inevitable  caucus  system  enables  20 
them  to  do  so  with  a  show  of  fairness  and  justice.     If  it 
were  possible  to  conceive  for  a  moment  that  the  Demo- 
cratic party  should  disobey  the  behests  of  the  slave-holders, 
we  should  then  see  a  withdrawal  of  the  slave-holders,  which 
would  leave  the  party  to  perish.      The  portion  of  the  25 
])arty  which  is  found  in  the  free  States  is  a  mere  appen- 
dage, convenient  to  modify  its  sectional  character  with- 
out imimiring  its  sectional  constitution,  and  is  less  effective 
in  regulating  its  uiovement  than  the  nebulous  tail  of  the 
comet  is  in  determining  the  appointed,  though  apparently  30 
eccentric,  course  of  tlie  fiery  sphere  from  which  it  em- 
anates. 

To  expect  the  Democratic  party  to  resist  slavery  and 
favor  freedom,  is  as  unreasonable  as  to  look  for  Protest- 
ant missionaries  to  the  Catholic  Propaganda  of  Kome.  35 


308  Setvard, 

The  history  of  the  Democratic  party  commits  it  to  tlie 
policy  of  slavery.  It  has  been  the  Democratic  party  and 
no  other  agency,  which  has  carried  that  policy  up  to 
its  present  alarming  culmination.  Without  stopping  to 
6  ascertain  critically  the  origin  of  the  present  Democratic 
party,  we  may  concede  its  claim  to  date  from  the  era 
of  good  feeling  which  occurred  under  the  administration 
of  President  Monroe.  At  that  time,  in  this  State,  and 
about  that  time  in  many  others  of  the  free  States,  the 

10  Democratic  party  deliberately  disfranchised  the  free  col- 
ored or  African  citizen,  and  it  has  pertinaciously  continued 
this  disfranchisement  ever  since.  This  was  an  effective 
aid  to  slavery ;  for,  while  the  slave-holder  votes  for  his 
slaves  against  freedom,  the  freed  slave  in  the  free  States 

15  is  prohibited  from  voting  against  slavery.  .  .  . 

[Here  follows  a  review  of  measures  carried  or  attempted  by  the 
Democratic  party,  from  1824  up  to  the  date  of  this  speech,  to  show 
the  singleness  of  the  devotion  of  that  party  to  the  support  of 
slavery.     The  passage  closes  as  follows:  — ] 

20  The  Democratic  party,  finally,  has  procured  from  a 
supreme  judiciary,  fixed  in  its  interest,  a  decree  that 
slavery  exists  by  force  of  the  Constitution  in  every  terri- 
tory of  the  United  States,  paramount  to  all  legislative 
authority   either   within    th^   territory   or    residing    in 

25  Congress. 

Such  is  the  Democratic  party.  It  has  no  policy,  state 
or  federal,  for  finance,  or  trade,  or  manufacture,  or  com- 
merce, or  education,  or  internal  improvjBments,  or  for  the 
protection  or  even  the  security  of  civil  or  religious  lib- 

30  erty.  It  is  positive  and  uncompromising  in  the  interest 
of  slavery,  — negative,  compromising,  and  vacillating,  in 
regard  to  everything  else.  It  boasts  its  love  of  equality ; 
and  wastes  its  strength,  and  even  its  life,  in  fortifying 
the  only  aristocracy  known  in  the  land.     It  professes 


On  the  Irrepressible   Conflict.  309 

fiiiU'iuity  ;  iuid,  so  ultcu  as  slavery  requires,  allies  itself 
with  proscription.  It  magnifies  itself  for  conquests  in 
foreign  lands ;  but  it  sends  the  national  eagle  forth  always 
with  chains,  and  not  the  olive  branch,  in  his  fangs. 

This  dark  record  shows  you,  fellow  citizens,  what  I  6 
was  unwilling  to  announce  at  an  earlier  stage  of  this 
argument,  that  of  the  whole  nefarious  schedule  of  slave- 
holding  designs  which  I  have  submitted  to  you,  the  Dem- 
ocratic party  has  left  only  one  yet  to  be  consummated  — 
the  abrogation  of  the  law  which  forbids  the  African  slave-  lo 
ti-ade.   .   .   . 

I  think,  fellow  citizens,  that  I  have  shown  you  that 
it  is  high  time  for  the  friends  of  freedom  to  rush  to  the 
rescue  of  the  Constitution,  and  that  their  very  first  duty 
is  to  dismiss  the  Democratic  party  from  the  administra- 16 
tion  of  government.     Why  shall  it  not  be  done  ? 

...  I  know  —  few,  I  think,  know  better  than  I  — 
the  resources  and  energies  of  the  Democratic  party, 
which  is  identical  with  the  slave  power.  I  do  ample 
justice  to  its  traditional  ix)pularity.  I  know,  further — 20 
few,  I  think,  know  better  than  I  —  the  difficulties  and 
disadvantages  of  organizing  a  new  political  force,  like 
the  Republican  party,  and  the  obstacles  it  must  en- 
counter in  laboring  without  prestige  and  without  pat- 
ronage. But,  understanding  all  this,  I  know  that  the  25 
Democratic  party  must  go  down,  and  that  the  Republican 
party  must  rise  into  its  place.  The  Democratic  party 
derived  its  strength,  originally,  from  its  adoption  of  the 
principles  of  equal  and  exact  justice  to  all  men.  So 
long  as  it  practised  this  principle  faithfully,  it  was  in-  30 
vulnerable.  It  became  vulnerable  when  it  renounced 
the  principle,  and  since  that  time  it  has  maintained  it- 
self, not  by  virtue  of  its  own  strength,  or  even  of  its 
traditional  merits,  but  because  there  as  yet  had  ap- 
peared in  the  political  field  no  other  party  that  had  86 


810  Seward. 

the  conscience  and  the  courage  to  take  up,  and  avow,  and 
practise  the  life-inspiring  principle  which  the  Democratic 
party  had  surrendered.  At  last,  the  Republican  party 
has  appeared.  It  avows,  now,  as  the  Republican  party 
6  of  1800  did,  in  one  word,  its  faith  and  its  works,  "  Equal 
and  exact  justice  to  all  men."  Even  when  it  first  en- 
tered the  field,  only  half  organized,  it  struck  a  blow 
which  only  just  failed  to  secure  complete  and  triumpliant 
victory.     In  this,  its    second  campaign,  it  has  already 

10  won  advantages  which  render  that  triumph  now  both 
easy  and  certain. 

The  secret  of  its  assured  success  lies  in  that  very  char- 
acteristic which,  in  the  mouth  of  scoifers,  constitutes  its 
great  and  lasting  imbecility  and  reproach.     It  lies  in  the 

15  fact  that  it  is  a  party  of  one  idea ;  but  that  idea  is  a 
noble  one  —  an  idea  that  fills  and  expands  all  generous 
souls ;  the  idea  of  equality  —  the  equality  of  all  men  be- 
fore human  tribunals  and  human  laws,  as  they  all  are 
equal  before  the  divine  tribunal  and  divine  laws. 

20  I  know,  and  you  know,  that  a  revolution  has  begun. 
I  know,  and  all  the  world  knows,  that  revolutions  never 
go  backward.  Twenty  Senators  and  a  hundred  Repre- 
sentatives proclaim  boldly  in  Congress  to-day  sentiments 
and  opinions  and  principles  of  freedom  which  hardly  so 

25  many  men,  even  in  this  free  State,  dared  to  utter  in  their 
own  homes  twenty  years  ago.  "While  the  Government  of 
the  United  States,  under  the  conduct  of  tlie  Democratic 
party,  has  been  all  that  time  surrendering  one  plain  and 
castle  after  another  to  slavery,  the  people  of  the  United 

30  States  have  been  no  less  steadily  and  perseveringly  gath- 
ering together  the  forces  with  which  to  recover  back 
again  all  the  fields  and  all  the  castles  which  have  been 
lost,  and  to  confound  and  overthrow,  by  one  decisive 
blow,   the  betrayers  of    the  constitution  and   freedom 

35  forever. 


ABRAHAM    LINCOLN. 


THE   GETTYSBURG   ADDRESS  ;   NOVEMBER    19,   1883. 


Fourscore  and  seven  years  ago  our  fathers  brought 
forth  upon  this  continent  a  new  nation,  conceived  in  lib- 
erty, and  dedicated  to  the  proposition  that  all  men  are 
created  equal.  Now  we  are  engaged  in  a  great  civil  war, 
testing  whether  that  nation,  or  any  nation  so  conceived  5 
and  so  dedicated,  can  long  endure.  We  are  met  on  a 
great  battle-field  of  that  war.  We  have  come  to  dedi- 
cate a  portion  of  that  field  as  a  final  resting-place  for 
those  who  here  gave  their  lives  that  that  nation  might 
live.  It  is  altogether  fitting  and  proper  that  we  should  10 
do  this.  But  in  a  larger  sense  we  cannot  dedicate,  we 
cannot  consecrate,  we  cannot  hallow  this  ground.  The 
brave  men,  living  and  dead,  who  struggled  here,  have 
consecrated  it  far  above  our  power  to  add  or  detract. 
The  world  will  little  note,  nor  long  remember,  what  we  15 
say  here,  but  it  can  never  forget  what  they  did  here.  It 
is  for  us,  the  living,  rather  to  be  dedicated  here  to  the 
unfinished  work  which  they  who  fought  here  have  thus 
far  so  nobly  advanced.  It  is  rather  for  us  to  be  here 
dedicated  to  the  great  task  remaining  before  us,  that  20 
from  these  honored  dead  we  take  increased  devotion  to 
that  cause  for  which  they  gave  the  last  full  measure 
of  devotion  ;  that  we  here  highly  resolve  that  these  dead 
shall  not  have  died  in  vain ;  that  this  nation,  under  God, 
shall  have  a  new  birth  of  freedom,  and  that  government  26 
of  the  people,  by  the  people,  and  for  the  people,  shall 
not  perish  from  the  earth. 

811 


NOTES 


ORATIONS  AND  ARGUMENTS, 


NOTES. 


THE   ENGLISH   CONSTITUTION  AND  GOVERNMENT. 

TiiK  English  speeches  contained  in  this  volume  make  frequent 
reference  to  a  structure  of  government  and  to  forms  and  usages 
unlike  those  with  which  we  are  familiar  in  the  United  States. 
Information  uiH)n  these  subjects  is  absolutely  necessary  to  an 
intelligent  reading  of  these  sixjeches,  and  yet  it  is  not  always 
rejMlily  accessible.  It  lias  therefore  been  thought  best  to  embody 
in  succinct  statement  the  j>eculiar  features  of  the  English  Consti- 
tution, government,  and  procedure  touched  upon  in  the  speeches, 
and  incidentally  to  point  out  the  pitfalls  which  lurk  under  the 
guise  of  terms  and  expressions  similar  in  form  to  our  own,  but 
different  in  content  and  meaning.  It  should  be  noted  that  the 
point  of  view  in  the  following  sketch  is  that  of  the  present  status 
in  England.  Historical  differences  within  the  period  covered  will 
be  noticed  as  they  occur  in  the  speeches  themselves. 

TIIK    BRITISH    CONSTITUTION. 

When  a  new  organization  of  government  was  adopted  and  put 
ujKjn  trial  in  the  United  States  in  1789,  the  sjiecial  features  of 
that  organization  were  set  forth  in  a  well-known  document,  which, 
by  a  natural  transfer  of  meaning,  took  the  name  of  the  order  and 
organization  which  it  described ;  that  is,  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States  of  America.  Ever  since  that  time  the  extraordi- 
nary interest  centring  in  this  document  has,  in  the  usage  of 
American  si^akers  and  writers,  tended  steadily  to  shift  the  mean- 
ing of  the  word  Constitution  to  this  narrower  base ;  that  is,  from 
the  iictual  order  and  organization  of  government  to  the  docunient 
in  which  that  order  is  officially  descril)ed  and  promulgated.  This 
limitation  of  meaning  is  by  no  means  prevalent  outsidt;  the  realm 
of  American  iJolitics ;  and  the  young  American  student  should  be 

815 


316  Notes, 

sixjcially  cautioned  against  intei-preting  in  any  such  narrow  sense 
the  frequent  reference  made  by  Englishmen  to  the  Britisli  Consti- 
tution. England  has  no  written  Constitution  ;  nor,  under  the  cir- 
cumstances, could  she  well  liave  one.  Her  government  is  the 
outcome  of  ages  of  experiment  and  struggle ;  of  incessant  re-ad- 
justment of  conflicting  powers  and  interests ;  sometimes  of  8haii> 
and  decisive  action ;  more  frequently  of  insensible  but  irresistible 
drifting  uikju  the  current  of  national  tendency.  Questions  of 
constitutionality,  therefore,  are  settled  in  England,  not  by  appeal 
to  a  state-paiMjr  like  ours,  since  none  exists,  but  by  tipi>eal  to 
unchallenged  usage,  to  precedents  not  reversed,  or  to  legislation 
not  rejHjaled,  wherever  these  are  to  be  found  in  the  centuries 
between  Magna  Charta  and  the  present  time.  Even  in  cases 
where  we  find  citation  of  what  is  claimed  to  be  the  very  language 
of  the  Constitution,  we  are  not  to  understand  anything  more  than 
that  the  language  is  that  of  some  document  of  acknowledged  au- 
thority in  determining  usage;  as,  for  example,  an  Act  of  Parlia- 
ment. And  the  English  Constitution  is  altered,  not  through  the 
formality  of  an  amendment  voted  upon  by  the  people,  but  by  em- 
bodying the  innovation  directly  in  legislative  act,  —  subject,  of 
course,  to  prompt  ratification  or  rejection  by  the  jieople  in  their 
next  return  of  members  to  Parliament.  To  Englishmen,  then, 
the  Constitution  means  primarily  the  established  order  of  rjocern- 
menty  whether  this  be  (1)  with  reference  to  its  organization,  its 
actual  structure,  and  the  relation  of  its  parts ;  or  (2)  with  refer- 
ence to  usage,  precedent,  and  law ;  or  (3)  with  reference  to  its 
genius  and  spirit.  In  the  firet  sense  the  word  is  often  loosely 
synonymous  with  our  use  of  the  word  government;  but  for  this 
last  word  English  usage  has  developed  a  special  meaiiing  (see 
below),  which  excludes  it  in  certain  connections.  Examples  of 
these  several  uses  of  the  word  may  be  found  on  p.  257,  1.  32 ; 
p.  50,  1.  15 ;  p.  79,  1.  35 ;  and  p.  42,  1.  25. 

THE    CABINET. 

In  England  the  executive  power,  as  of  old,  is  vested  nominally 
in  the  Crown,  but  really  in  the  Cabinet,  or  Ministry,  with  which 
body  the  sovereign  is  associated,  both  as  its  honorary  head  and  as 


TlieEiiglUh  Cabinet.  317 

a  ix»rinaneut  councillor;  influential  indeed,  but  without  vol..  n- 
8i)onsiV>ility,  or  i>l{ico  in  itij  sessions.  AVhenever  a  decisive  change 
of  party  or  of  i>olicy  becomes  apparent  in  the  votes  of  the  House 
of  Commons,  the  old  Cabinet  resigns,  and  a  new  one  is  formed  to 
put  the  new  policy  into  operation.  Theoretically  the  Queen  is 
free  to  choose  whom  she  will  to  become  Prime  Minister  and  form 
the  new  Cabinet ;  but  practically  the  choice  is  limited  to  a  single 
person,  the  acknowledged  leader  of  the  party  which  has  be- 
come uppermost  in  the  Commons.  The  Prime  Minister  selects 
liis  colleagues  from  among  the  ablest  men  of  his  party  and  its 
allies  in  both  Houses,  a  significant  feature  of  the  scheme  being 
the  fact  that  the  Ministers  are  actually  members  of  Parliament, 
are  present  at  its  sessions,  and  play  a  most  important  part  in  its 
delilierations.  The  Cabinet  so  constituted  is,  therefore,  a  com- 
mittee of  the  majority.  But  it  is  more  than  this.  It  is  a  commit- 
tee ♦*  with  power,"  charged  with  the  duty  of  acting  in  momentous 
alTaii"s,  and  often  without  previous  consultation  with  Parliament. 
Ui>on  it  devolves,  furthermore,  nearly  the  whole  initiative  iii  legis- 
lation,—  the  duty  of  planning,  introducing,  and  bringing  to  decis- 
ion almost  all  measures  discussed  in  Parliament.  The  promptness 
and  completeness  with  which  this  body  of  men  is  vested  with  im- 
l^erial  power,  in  every  realm  save  that  of  the  Judiciary,  is  startling 
indeed  to  American  ideas.  The  Ministry  becomes  at  once  both 
heart  and  brain  of  the  government,  and  during  its  tenure  of  office 
wields  a  ix)wer  far  transcending  that  of  our  Presidential  Adminis- 
tration. A  sufficient  safeguard  against  abuse  of  this  power  is 
found  in  the  immediate  resiwnsibility  of  the  Ministry  to  the  Couj- 
mons;  that  is,  in  the  swiftness  and  certainty  of  it^  downfall  if  it 
fails  to  carry  the  majority  with  it.  Out  of  the  feeling  that  the 
Ministry  is  the  vital  centre  of  government.  Englishmen  have 
come  to  call  it  "  Her  Majesty's  Government,"  "  the  Government," 
or  simply  "  Government."  In  these  expressions  there  is  often  an 
implied  reference  to  that  other  equally  important  and  equally 
recognized  part  of  the  system,  "  the  Opjwsition ; "  that  is,  the 
organized  minority,  in  its  character  of  critic  and  advocate  for 
the  other  side,  charged  with  the  duty  of  allowing  nothing  to  pass 
tviiliiiiii  i-]iiii<-ii.>.-  III. I  ..(I'l. •;..••«  <<■••■•«;•. T- 


■>]-<  Notes,     • 

PARLIAMENT. 

The  Parliament  of  England  consists  of  two  bodies,  or  «  Houses,** 
the  I^rds  and  the  Commons.  The  House  of  Ix)rds  stands  for  the 
conservatism  of  ancient  privilege ;  the  Commons,  for  the  final 
sovereignty  of  the  ^xjople.  The  one  is  for  the  most  part  heredi- 
tary, and  often  continues  without  radical  change  during  long 
jx»riods  of  time ;  the  other  is  the  direct  representative  of  the  i^eo- 
ple,  and  is  kept  such  by  frequent  general  elections.  Parliament 
assembles  at  the  summons  of  the  Crown ;  that  Ls,  of  the  Ministry 
in  the  name  of  the  Queen.  It  is  o^^ened  by  a  Speech  from  the 
Throne  read  in  the  House  of  Ix)rds.  Its  annual  session  is  usually 
from  February  to  August,  at  the  close  of  which  it  is  "prorogued" 
by  the  Crown ;  and  in  the  end  it  is  dissolved  by  the  same  author- 
ity. The  term  of  a  Parliament  is  really  the  term  of  the  Lower 
House,  since  that  alone  is  affected  by  elections.  Its  utmost  possi- 
ble term  is  fixed  by  statute  at  seven  years ;  but  no  Parliament  of 
modern  times  has  survived  so  long.  Dissolution  of  Parliament 
comes  about  at  no  stated  time,  but  rather  as  an  exigency  of  gov- 
ernment. When  the  Ministers  find  themselves  confronted  by  an 
adverse  majority  in  the  Commons,  if  issue  is  clearly  joined  and 
the  majority  decisive,  they  are  exjiected  to  resign  their  power  at 
once  into  the  hands  of  the  majority.  But  if  there  is  doubt  as  to 
"whether  this  majority  really  represents  the  will  of  the  people,  the 
^linistry  may  dissolve  Parliament  and  "  go  to  the  country "  — 
that  is,  api^eal  to  the  people  uix)n  the  issue  raised. 

TlIK    HOUSE    OF    LORDS. 

The  House  of  Lords  has  a  membership  of  over  five  hundred, 
consisting  of  the  following  groups:  (1)  The  Lords  Temi)oral ; 
i.e.,  the  hereditary  peerage  of  England  with  a  small  representa- 
tion chosen  from  the  peerage  of  Scotland  and  of  Ireland.  (2)  The 
Lords  Spiritual ;  i.e.,  the  higher  clergy  of  the  Established  Church, 
in  the  persons  of  the  archbishops  and  bishops.  (3)  The  higher 
judiciaiT,  in  the  persons  of  the  I^rd  Chancellor  and  three  distin- 
guished lawyers  or  judges  designated  by  the  Crown,  and  called 
Lords  of  Appeal  in  Ordinary,  or,  more  popularly,  "  Law  Lords." 


Tlie   JTnme  of  Lords.  310 

i  ii.->,-  ill!.-.-  ^MMij.^  .11.'  .^.  i-aicilt'ly  iidilii'sstMl  ill  (.'liutlianrs  sj^oech, 
p.  87.  The  \jovA  Cliuiicellor  presides,  and  is  a  meuiber  of  the 
rejjiiant  ministry ;  tlie  Law  Ixjrds  are  advisers  of  the  Ix)rd8  uiK>n 
legal  nuittei-s.  These  i^ersons,  however,  are  not  by  virtue  of  their 
offices  "  lords  of  Parliament  *'  —  members  entitled  to  speak  and 
to  vote  in  the  ordinary  business  of  the  Upper  House.  Even  the 
Chancellor's  seat,  the  famous  "  woolsack,"  is  theoretically  outside 
the  precincts  of  the  Lords,  although  it  is,  in  fact,  almost  in  the 
centre  of  their  chamber.  But  in  recent  practice  the  Chancellor  is 
regularly  ma<le  an  hereditary  peer,  if  he  is  not  one  alreatly,  and 
the  Law  Lords  are  made  peers  for  life.  Only  a  mere  fraction  of 
the  membership  is  ordinarily  found  in  attendance  upon  business. 
Three  meml>ers,  it  is  said,  constitute  a  quorum ;  and,  until  recently, 
meml)ers  might  vote  by  proxy  without  being  present  or  hearing 
discussion.  In  legislation,  the  House  of  Lords  is  theoretically  of 
equal  weight  with  the  House  of  Commons,  since  the  consent  of 
both  is  requisite  to  the  passage  of  any  Act.  But,  iu  reality,  the 
power  of  the  former  has  greatly  dwindled,  partly  because  of  what 
is  felt  to  be  the  narrowness  of  its  sympathy  and  interest  outside 
of  its  own  class ;  still  more  because  of  its  exclusion  from  the  great 
field  of  finance  and  taxation ;  and,  most  of  all,  because  in  the  end 
it  can  always  be  forced  to  assent  to  the  will  of  the  Commons  by 
the  simple  expedient  of  having  new  peers  created  by  the  ^Hnistry 
in  the  name  of  the  Crown,  and  thus  overwhelming  the  adverse 
majority.  The  fear  that  such  action  would  be  taken  was  sufficient 
to  secure  the  a.ssent  of  the  Lords  to  the  Reform  Bill  of  1832;  — 
a  sufficient  number  of  the  majority,  though  bitterly  opposed  to 
the  bill,  deliberately  absented  themselves  to  avoid  precipitating  the 
crisis.  The  influence  of  the  peerage  upon  legislation  is  still  great 
in  many  wavs;  but  the  actual  power  of  their  House  in  a  contested 
case  is  limit4>d  to  a  power  of  cautious  revision  and  a  veto  to  stay 
proceedings  until  the  people  shall  have  spoken  again,  and  with 
decisive  empliasis,  u|x>n  the  ix)int  in  question. 

It  should  1)6  noted  in  passing,  that  the  House  of  Lords  has 
judicial  functions  in  which  its  action  is  quite  independent  of  the 
Commons.  It  sits  as  a  Court  of  Imp(>achment  in  cases  like  that 
of  Warren  Hastings,  and  as  a  court  for  the  trial  of  members  of 


320  Notes, 

its  own  order  charged  witli  troason  or  felony.  Furthermore,  it 
8it8,  —  or,  as  we  sliould  say,  a  committee  consisting  only  of  its 
legal  members  sits,  —  as  a  Supreme  Con  it  of  A  i.i  «.;.!<  for  the 
kingdom. 

THK    HOUSE    OF    COMMONS. 

As  the  result  of  successive  changes  in  the  representation  of  the 
realm,  the  House  of  Commons  now  numbers  sir  hundred  and 
sevetity  meml>ers.  The  constituencies  which  "  return "  these 
meml>ers  are  either  rural  —  counties  and  subdivisions  of  counties; 
ur1)an  —  l)oroughs  and  wards;  or  universities.  On  receipt  of  the 
writ,  or  order  for  an  election,  the  "  returning  officer  "  of  each  con- 
stituency arranges  the  preliminaries  and  fixes  a  date  before  which 
all  candidates  nmst  announce  themselves.  When  that  date  is 
reached,  if  no  more  candidates  api^ear  than  there  are  seats  to  be 
filled,  the  candidates  are  "  returned  "  by  the  officer  —  are  reported 
as  duly  elected  —  without  further  formality  of  l)alloting.  If, 
however,  a  seat  is  "  contested  **  by  two  or  more  candidates,  the 
officer  apix)ints  a  day  for  "taking  the  |k>11."  In  general  elections, 
therefore,  it  comes  about  that  the  polls  are  not  taken  in  all  the 
constituencies  on  the  same  day,  but  are  scattered  over  a  consider- 
able interval  of  time.  Thus,  in  a  hotly  contested  campaign  it  not 
infrequently  hapixjns  that  some  distinguished  party  champion 
attempts  in  the  first  instance  to  carry  some  stronghold  of  the 
enemy,  is  defeated  there,  and  yet  saves  his  place  in  Parliament  by 
offering  himself  at  the  eleventh  hour  as  a  candidate  in  one  of 
these  later  elections.  Any  fully  qualified  citizen  not  a  meml>er 
of  the  House  of  Lords,  an  officer  of  government,  nor  a  clergyman 
either  of  the  Established  or  Roman  Church,  may  «  stand ; "  i.e.,  is 
eligible  to  Parliament.  Residence  outside  of  the  district  is  no 
bar,  as  we  have  seen  al>ove.  The  candidate  not  only  pays  all  the 
expenses  of  his  canvass,  but  must  render  a  sworn  statement  of 
every  item  of  it.  If  successful,  he  is  free  thereafter  to  serve  the 
public  in  Parliament  at  his  own  expense,  for  the  government 
allows  him  no  compensation  whatever.  Only  in  very  rare  cases 
does  a  constituency  volunteer  to  maintain  in  Parliament  a  mem- 
ber too  poor  to  maintain  himself.  If  the  member  becomes  distin- 
guished enough  to  be  sought  for  high  political  office,  such  as  a 


The  House  of  Commons.  321 

place  in  the  Cabinet,  he  must,  by  submitting  to  a  second  election, 
obtain  from  his  constituency  permission  to  serve  them  in  tiie 
doublo  capacity  of  memlxir  and  minister. 

The  old  Houses  of  Parliament,  in  which  Burke,  Chatham,  and 
Aliicaulay  spoke,  were  destroyed  by  fire  in  1834.  Their  essential 
features,  arrangements,  and  usages,  liowever,  have  all  been  re- 
peated in  the  new  Houses;  and  these  will  require  some  brief 
notice  in  view  of  the  frequent  reference  made  to  them  in  the 
sjieeches.  The  "House"  in  which  the  Commons  sit,  and  in 
which  is  transacted  the  business  of  the  British  Empire,  is  an 
oblong  chaml>er  surrounded  by  lobbies.  At  one  end,  on  an  ele- 
vatt^d  platform,  is  the  Sjieaker's  Chair.  At  a  table  below  and  in 
front  of  him  sit  the  Clerks ;  beyond  them  lies  the  Mace,  emblem 
of  the  Speaker's  authority.  Parallel  with  the  sides  and  with  the 
further  end  of  the  room  are  arranged  the  members'  seats,  tier 
above  tier,  filling  the  whole  space  with  the  exception  of  a  narrow, 
oblong  iK)rtion  of  o[>en  floor  in  the  centre.  From  this  o^hmi  space 
the  main  aisle  runs  down  the  centre  of  the  chamber;  while  an 
aisle  at  right  angles  to  this,  and  known  as  the  "  gangway,"  inter- 
sects the  side  benches.  There  are  three  well-known  groups 
of  sittings:  The  front  row  of  seats  on  the  Speaker's  right  is 
called  the  Treasury  Bench,  and  is  occupied  by  the  Ministers, 
liehind  these  are  ranged  the  supporters  of  the  Government  —  the 
members  of  the  dominant  party.  The  seats  on  the  Speaker's  left, 
and  directly  facing  these  last,  are  the  Opposition  Benches,  occu- 
pied by  the  leaders  and  body  of  "Her  Majesty's  Opposition." 
The  "  cross-benches  "  at  the  end  of  the  room,  directly  facing  the 
Speaker,  are  the  place  for  members  who  do  not  afliliate  with 
either  of  the  great  parties.  One's  location  in  the  House  is  thus 
an  indication  of  his  ix)litical  relationships.  No  member,  how- 
ever, can  claim  exclusive  right  to  any  particular  seat,  since  the 
sittings  are  far  fewer  than  the  membership.  There  are  regularly 
five  sessions  a  week ;  four  of  these  run  from  4  o'clock  p.m.  till 
late  at  night  —  sometimes  till  after  day-break  —  and  one,  on 
Wednesday,  from  midday  till  0  o'clock  p.m.  Members  sit  with 
their  hats  on,  but  remove  them  when  they  rise  to  s{ieak. 

The  "  House  "  of  the  Ix)rds  is  in  the  same  builduig  with  that 


322  Notes, 

of  the  Commons,  but  at  the  furtlier  end  of  the  corridor.  Its  gen- 
eral arrangements  are  not  unlike  those  of  the  other  chanil>er, 
save  that  the  S|>eaker's  seat  —  the  woolsack  —  is  moved  forward 
toward  the  centre  to  make  place  for  a  raised  platform  and  the 
royal  throne  at  the  end  of  the  room. 

FOKM8   OF    PROCEDURE. 

At  the  opening  of  Parliament  the  Commons,  headed  by  their 
Speaker,  attend  at  the  bar  ^  of  the  Ix)rds  to  listen  to  the  Speech 
from  the  Throne,  a  pai>er  prepared,  of  course,  l>y  the  Ministry, 
and  resembling  somewhat,  in  its  general  scoi^e,  our  President's 
Message.  At  the  close  of  the  Speech  they  retire  to  their  chamber, 
and,  first  of  all,  go  through  the  form  of  reading  some  unimpor- 
tant bill,  in  order  to  assert  once  more  their  right  to  deliberate 
freely  about  whatever  they  will,  even  though  matters  urged  upon 
them  by  the  Crown  liave  to  wait.  Some  meml)er  previously  desig- 
nated for  this  duty  then  moves  the  "  Address  "  —  the  formal  reply 
to  the  royal  Speech,  couched  in  subservient  language,  and  strictly 
echoing  the  tone  and  the  suggestions  of  that  paper.  In  the  debate 
which  follows,  there  is  a  general  airing  of  views  of  all  sorts,  and 
not  infrequently  amendments  are  proi>osed  sharply  criticising  the 
acts  or  the  ix)licy  of  Government.^  These  matters  disix)sed  of,  the 
regular  business  of  the  session  begins.  Of  this  there  is  inevitably 
an  enormous  amount,  since  many  matters  which  in  our  country 
never  come  before  Congress,  but  belong  either  to  State,  or  to 
county,  or  to  municipal  government,  are  in  England  directly  under 
the  control  of  Parliament.  But  there  is  no  such  deluge  of  proposed 
legislation  as  that  which  greets  us  Americans  at  the  opening  of 
Congress.  The  House  of  Lords,  as  we  have  seen,  does  very  little  in 
initiating  measures ;  w  hile  individual  members  of  the  Commons 
may  introduce  bills  but  sparingly,  not  as  of  right,  but  only  by  con- 
sent of  the  House.     Furthermore,  only  the  Wednesday  afternoon 

1  A  movable  barrier  or  rail  in  the  main  aisle  of  each  House,  beyond  which 
none  but  officers  and  members  are  allowed  to  pass. 

*  A  debate  «iK)n  a  similar  Address  in  the  House  of  Lords  was  the  occasion  of 
Chatham's  speech  printed  in  this  volume,  and  of  an  amendment  proposed  by 


Forms  of  Procedure,  323 

session  of  each  week  is  available  for  the  consideration  of  business 
so  introduced.  The  Ministry  is  held  responsible  for  the  introduc- 
tion of  all  necessary  legislation ;  while  the  duty  of  the  House  is  pri- 
marily to  scrutinize,  discuss,  amend,  accept,  or  reject  the  measures 
the  Ministry  projwses.  (iovernment  measures  have,  therefore, 
large  right  of  way ;  tlu-ee  full  sessions  each  week  are  devoted  to 
them  exclusively.  Questions  propounded  to  the  Ministry  form  a 
noteworthy  feature  of  the  Parliamentary  scheme,  aifording,  as 
they  do,  to  the  House  an  admirable  means  of  informing  itself  on 
matters  it  needs  to  know,  and  to  the  Ministers  an  opportunity  of 
directly  stating  their  case  and  explaining  their  action.  But 
neither  measures  nor  questions  may  be  sprung  upon  the  House 
unawares.  Full  notice  and  precise  statement  of  each  must  in  all 
cases  be  previously  given. 

The  regular  course  through  which  a  Bill  nmst  pass  to  become  a 
a  law  is  as  follows :  The  Bill,  having  been  drafted,  printed,  and 
projxjrly  endorsed,  comes  to  its  "  first  reading,"  after  due  notice 
given  and  motion  passed  "  for  leave  to  bring  in  the  Bill."  Its 
title  then  is  read  aloud  by  the  Clerk,  and  a  motion  is  made  that 
the  Bill  be  read  a  second  time  on  a  future  day  named.  When 
the  day  arrives,  the  projwser  moves  its  second  reading,  and  enters 
into  a  full  exi>lanation  and  defence  of  its  provisions.  Debate  fol- 
lows; and  if  the  House  consents  to  the  second  reading,  it  is  under- 
stood as  accepting  the  general  principle  of  the  measure,  though 
not  committing  itself  to  the  details.  If  the  House  refuses,  the 
Bill  is  of  course  defeated.  This  second  reading  is  therefore  the 
most  critical  stage  of  a  Bill  in  its  course  in  the  Connnons,  and 
calls  for  the  most  strenuous  efforts  of  its  defenders.  After  its 
second  reading,  the  Hou.se  votes  to  consider  it  in  detail  in  a  Com- 
mittee on  some  future  day  named.  In  this  Committee  changes 
and  amendments  are  agreed  upon,  and  the  Committee  rises  and 
reports  to  the  House  the  Bill,  usually  in  its  final  shai)e.  The 
House  orders  its  third  reading,  again  in  the  future ;  and  when 
this  is  reached,  the  motion  is  put  "  that  the  Bill  l)e  pa.ssed." 
Votes  in  the  House  are  taken  first  viva  vttce ;  but  if  the  result  is 
doubted,  a  «♦  division  **  is  taken  in  this  way :  Those  voting  "  Ay  " 
pass  oiii  (if  ilir  (hamber  into  the  lobby  ou  the  S|)eakcr*s  right, 


324  Note». 

while  those  voting  "  No  "  pass  into  the  lobby  on  the  left,  luitil  tlio 
SiHiaker  remains  alone.  The  members  are  counted  as  they  file  back 
into  the  chamber,  and  the  result  is  announced.  A  Bill  that  suc- 
cessfully passes  this  stau^e  is  sent  up  to  the  Lords.  If  the  Lords 
accept  it,  it  receives,  as  a  matter  of  course,  the  royal  assent,^  and 
l)econies  a  law.  If  the  Lords  amend  it,  it  nmst  return  to  the 
Commons  for  their  concurrence  in  tlie  amendments.  If  the  I^rds 
"  throw  it  out,"  or  if  the  Commons  refuse  to  accept  the  amend- 
ments of  the  Lords,  the  Bill,  of  course,  is  lost. 

FINANCE   AND   TAXATION. 

The  principle  that  a  free  people  must  be  free  to  tax  itself  and 
to  sp(»nd  its  money  as  it  will,  is  a  principle  which  our  fathers 
brought  with  them  from  the  old  country.  The  difference  between 
a  tax  "  given  and  granted  "  to  the  Crown  by  the  people  themselves, 
and  a  tax  imj^sed  by  the  Crown  upon  the  people,  was  in  the  last 
century,  to  Englishmen  on  both  sides  of  the  Atlantic,  a  very  vital 
diffei-ence  —  the  difference  l>etween  freedom  and  subjugation. 
Burke  sj^eaks  of  this  point  on  p.  49,  1.  13-21 ;  and  the  whole 
subject  is  eloquently  set  forth  by  him  in  a  speech  uiwn  American 
Taxation,  not  included  in  this  volume.  Out  of  this  very  matter 
grew  our  Revolutionary  War.  Since  that  war,  however,  there 
has  been  for  us  neither  Crown  nor  subject,  nor  any  participant  in 
our  government  other  than  the  people  itself ;  and  the  old  distinc- 
tion is  lost.  Our  governments  of  all  degrees  regularly  levy,  or 
imix)se,  taxes ;  and  the  form  of  expression  no  longer  awakes  our 
wrath.  But  in  England  the  old  distinction  and  the  old  usage 
still  hold.  There  the  vast  framework  of  government  —  outside 
of  the  Commons  —  has  absolutely  no  vital  or  sustaining  power 
within  itself ;  it  can  levy  no  tax,  can  raise  no  revenue  for  its  own 
support,  has  no  income  at  all  save  what  the  people  from  year  to 
year  through  their  representatives,  the  Commons,  actually  "  give 
and  grant."  The  Queen,  in  her  Speech  from  the  Throne,  must 
each  year  ask  anew  that  "  her  faithful  Commons  "  vote  her  the 

»  There  was  once  a  veto  power  resi«ient  in  the  Sovereign,  but  it  is  now  practi- 
cally lost.  Tlie  Queen  must  assent  to  whatever  passes  the  two  Houses.  The  last 
veto  in  English  liistory  was  by  Queen  Anne. 


Finance  and  Taxation,  o-* 

supplios  without  which  every  wheel  in  the  system  must  come  to  a 
stantistill.  The  Commons  hold  the  purse.  One  of  the  chiel 
matters,  therefore,  in  the  annual  business  of  the  House,  is  the 
consideration  of  the  "  Budget."  The  minister  in  charge  of  the 
finances  of  the  realm  is  termed  the  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer. 
1 1  is  most  arduous  duty  is  the  preparation  of  estimates  of  exi>en- 
diture  for  the  coming  year,  and  plans  for  taxation  whereby  the 
necessary  amount  may  be  raised.  When  this  Budget  is  reatly, 
the  House  receives  and  considers  it  in  a  "Committee  of  Supply." 
This  is  a  Committee  of  the  whole  House,  formed  for  the  purjwse 
of  securing  the  utmost  freedom  of  question  and  discussion,  which 
would  otherwise  be  hampered  by  strict  parliamentary  rules.  The 
Sju^aker  leaves  his  seat,  the  Mace  is  carried  away,  some  member 
is  made  Chairman,  and  discussion  runs  on  with  little  heed  to  the 
formality  of  rules.  In  this  Committee  is  settled  the  amount 
Commons  will  grant  the  Crown,  and  the  ends  to  which  it  is  to  be 
applied.  This  done,  the  same  body  resolves  itself  into  a  Com- 
mittee of  Ways  and  Means,  to  determine  in  like  manner  how  the 
money  shall  be  raised.  When  this  Committee  has  closed  its  de- 
liberations, it  rises,  the  Speaker  resumes  his  place,  and  the  Chair- 
man of  the  Committees  reix)rts  to  the  House  the  conclusions 
reiiched,  which  are  then  embodied  in  a  motion  and  passed  by  the 
House  in  its  formal  capacity.  When  a  "  Money  Bill "  has  duly 
passed  all  its  stages  in  the  Commons,  it  is  sent  to  the  Ix>rds,  who 
have  no  power  to  alter  or  amend  it,  though  they  may  reject  it  — 
if  they  dare.  Furthermore,  such  a  bill  does  not  go  up  to  the 
Queen  along  with  others  through  the  hands  of  the  Ivords,  but  is 
returned  to  the  Commons,  and  at  the  end  of  the  session  is  pre- 
sented to  her  by  the  Speaker  in  person,  as  the  gift  of  the  people 
alone.  And  on  such  an  occasion  the  Queen  never  fails  to  thank 
the  Commons  for  their  generosity. 


In  the  preparation  of  the  foregoing  sketch  the  author  has 
consulted  among  others  the  following  works,  and  would  recom- 
mend them  to  the  student  for  further  study  or  reference : 

A  Primer  of  f  he  Englith  Cnnttitntum  and  Goremment,  by  Shelilon  Aiu<)ii(I^)nK- 
maiM,  Oreen  &  C^.,  N.V.)  — a  compact  topical  statciiieiit,  with  gtxMl  Index 
and  Apiwudices. 


326  Notes, 

The  Enyllah  Constitutinn,  by  Walter  Ragehnt  (Chapman,  Hall  &  Co.,  London) 
—  a  brilliant  and  iM>pular  discusKion  of  it«  exctillenceg  and  defects. 

Tilt'  State,  by  WcKMlrow  Wilson  (I),  C.  Heath  &  Co.,  Ikmton)  — specially  valu- 
able as  a  topical  digest  and  manual  of  the  structure  and  organization  of 
all  the  great  constitutional  governments  of  the  modent  M'orld. 

The  Iaiw  of  the  CoHstitution,  a  series  of  lectures  by  A.  V.  Dicey  (Macmillan  & 
Co.)  — giving  with  utmost  logical  clearness  the  lawyer's  view  of  the  English 
Constitution,  and  explaining  some  of  its  principal  maxims. 


EDMUND   BUKKE. 


Edmund  Burke  was  born  in  Dublin,  Ireland,  in  January,  1729. 
His  father  was  an  attorney  with  a  fair  practice,  and  looked  for- 
ward to  the  same  profession  for  his  son.  The  boy  received  his 
education  first  in  a  private  school;  then  in  Trinity  College,  DuIh 

lin, where  he  took  the  bachelor's  degree  in  his  nineteenth  year ; 

and  last  of  all,  in  the  Middle  Temple,  London.  Ilis  studies  gained 
him  at  the  time  no  si>ecial  academic  honors,  and  never  brought 
him  to  the  iictual  practice  of  the  law;  yet  in  them,  and  especially 
in  the  wide  and  i»rofound  reading  whicii  accompanied  them,  was 
laid  the  foundation  of  his  future  greatness. 

Burke's  first  public  venture  was  in  literature.  In  1756  appeared 
his  y indication  of  Natural  Society  —  a  clever  bit  of  irony  ^  and 
liis  Iwiuirij  into  the  Origin  of  Our  Ideas  of  the  Sublime  and  the 
Beautiful,  an  essay  which  at  once  attracted  attention  both  in 
England  and  \i\yon  the  Continent.  Meantime,  however,  he  had 
discovered  the  true  bent  of  his  genius,  and  was  diligently  study- 
ing the  governmental  problems  of  England.  The  first  fruit  of 
this  study  appeared  in  1757,  in  his  Account  of  Knf/lish  Settle- 
ments in  America.  From  about  this  time  also  dates  his  long 
friendship  with  Dr.  Johnson  and  the  members  of  his  famous 
Literary  Club. 

His  political  career  began  in  1765,  when  he  became  private  sec- 
retary to  I^rd  Rockingham,  the  head  of  the  new  Whig  Ministry. 
A  little  later  he  was  returned  to  Parliament  as  nieml>er  for  Wen- 
dover,  taking  his  seat  in  time  to  distinguish  himself  in  the  debates 
which  preceded  the  rej^eal  of  the  Stamp  Act  in  1766.  His  career 
in  Parliament  lasted  without  break  from  this  time  until  1701, 
when,  broken  in  health  and  spirits,  he  withdrew  from  public  life. 
Ilis  death  occurred  not  long  after,  in  17U7. 

327 


328  Notes. 

A  passion  for  order  and  a  passion  for  justice,  some  one  has 
said,  were  the  master-motives  of  Burke's  thought  and  life.  Both 
these  passions  led  him  directly  into  that  field  of  human  activity 
where  they  find  their  noblest  play,  the  field  of  practical  govern- 
ment. During  his  lifetime  three  mighty  questions  successively 
confronted  the  government  of  England:  (1)  How  shall  a  great 
nation  deal  with  colonies  of  its  own  proud  blood  and  free  tradi- 
tions? (2)  IIow  shall  such  a  nation  treat  subject  provinces  of 
alien  race  and  temper?  (3)  IIow  shall  it  meet  the  fierce  spirit 
of  change  and  revolution  at  its  very  doors  ?  They  were  the  ques- 
tions of  America,  of  India,  and  of  France.  Into  their  discussion 
Burke  threw  himself  with  all  the  ardor  and  force  of  his  great 
nature.  In  his  utterance  \x\My\\  the  first  of  these  questions  Burke 
was  undoubtedly  at  his  best.  It  is  not  merely  that  this  topic  is 
one  which  naturally  attracts  American  readers.  It  is  not  merely 
that  his  arguments  have  still  a  living  interest  in  their  application 
to  great  questions  which  confront  England  in  our  own  day. 
Burke  brought  to  it  a  fresher,  truer  insight,  a  judgment  more 
sane,  a  temper  more  serene  and  genial,  than  he  was  able  to  com- 
mand later,  after  years  spent  in  unavailing  struggle  and  bitter 
conflict.  Furthermore,  this  question  raised  no  schism  within  him- 
self. His  passion  for  the  established  order  and  his  passion  for 
justice  both  led  him  to  the  same  conclusion. 

When  the  American  Colonies  were  forever  lost,  Burke  turned 
his  attention  to  the  government  of  England's  East  Indian  i>osses- 
sions.  A  series  of  brilliant  speeches  in  Parliament  led  up  to  his 
crowning  effort  upon  this  subject,  the  speech  at  the  trial  of  War- 
ren Hastings,  in  1787.  Burke's  grasp  of  facts  is  now  more  mas- 
terful, and  his  oratory  more  splendid  than  ever;  but  the  noble 
effect  is  somewhat  marred  by  a  shrillness  of  tone,  an  excitement 
of  personal  feeling,  and  a  fierceness  of  invective  from  which  his 
earlier  utterances  were  free. 

In  1789  came  the  crash  of  the  French  Revolution.  Burke's 
horror  at  the  overthrow  of  long-established  order  was  so  great  as 
to  leave  no  room  for  calm  consideration  of  justice  as  between 
oppressor  and  oppressed.  With  fiercer  and  fiercer  outcry  from 
this  time  onward  he  urged  England  to  esix)use  the  cause  of  the 
old  tyranny,  and  to  put  down  the  Revolution. 


Burke :    On  ConciliatlQn  with  the  Colonies,       829 


SPEECH   ON   CONCILIATION  AMIII    THE   COLONIES. 

At  the  Oldening  of  the  year  1775  the  harsh  treatment  which  the 
Colonies  were  receiving  from  England  had  forced  them  to  com- 
bine for  mutual  support  against  further  aggression.  The  Conti- 
nental Congress  had  already  assembled.  Lexington  and  Bunker 
Hill  were  not  far  off.  It  was  becoming  a  matter  of  grave  imjior- 
tance  to  the  English  government  to  break  up  this  formidable 
union,  and  to  bring  the  Colonies  once  more  to  deal  separately  and 
singly  with  England.  At  this  juncture  Lord  North,  the  Prime 
Minister,  unexpectedly  announced  what  he  was  pleased  to  term  a 
mejisure  for  '*  conciliating  the  differences  with  America."  He 
l)rop<)sed  to  exempt  from  further  taxation  any  Colony  which,  after 
providing  for  the  maintenance  of  its  own  government,  should 
guarantee  to  the  mother-country  an  amount  satisfactory  to  her  as 
btung,  "  according  to  the  condition,  circumstances,  and  situation 
of  such  Colony,"  its  proportionate  contribution  toward  the  com- 
mon defence.  This  transparent  scheme  deceived  no  one,  —  it 
was  really  a  plan  to  divide  and  conquer.  To  the  friends  of  the 
Colonies,  however,  it  was  no  small  thing  that  the  Ministry,  after 
a  long  policy  of  coercion,  should  not  merely  accept,  but  of  its 
own  accord  announce,  the  principle  of  conciliation.  Burke  seized 
tlie  opportunity  to  propose  conciliation  which  might  really  be 
effective. 

TEXTUAL  NOTES. 

Pace  1, 1.  the  austerity  of  the  Chair  means,  of  course,  *the 
dignity  and  seriousness  of  this  a-ssenibly.'  The  parliamentary 
fiction  which  regards  not  merely  the  dignity,  but  the  i>erson- 
ality,  of  the  House  as  embodied  in  its  Si)eaker,  is  an  old-time 
device  to  banish  from  public  deliberations  the  fierceness  and  the 
confusion  of  personal  encounters.  To  it  we  owe  our  common 
rule  of  debate  that  all  remarks  must  lie  addres.sed  to  the  Chair, 
an<l  that  no  mention  be  made  by  name  of  any  person  in  the 
assembly.  This  rule  was,  no  doubt,  more  rigidly  observed  in 
Burke's  day  than  it  is  at  present.  But  the  literalness  with  which 
Burke  at  times  carries  out  the  fiction,  though  meant  as  pleasan- 


330  Notes. 

try,  has  a  strong  dash  of  the  grotesque ;  as  it  has  here  in  his 
ascription  to  the  Chair  of  the  actual  moods  and  temiKjr  of  the 
members,  and  again  on  p.  9,  1.  3,  4,  where  with  doubtful  compli- 
ment he  speaks  of  "a  blunter  discernment  than  yours."  In  a  like 
vein  is  his  disparagement  here  of  his  own  jxjrfectly  natural  and 
worthy  feeling  as  »  frailty  '  and  <  suj^rstition.'  Burke's  weighty 
genius  is  not  always  at  its  best  in  toying  with  trifles. 

8.  the  grand  penal  bill  was  a  measure  of  Lord  North's,  cut- 
ting off  the  New  England  colonies  from  all  trade  except  with  the 
mother  country  and  her  dependencies,  and,  worst  of  all,  putting  a 
stop  to  the  fisheries,  one  of  their  most  successful  and  imjKJrtant 
industries.  See  pp.  14-16.  The  Ix)rds  returned  the  bill  with  a 
savage  amendment  making  it  apply  to  all  the  American  Colonies. 
The  amendment  was  afterwards  withdrawn. 

Pack  2,  C,  7.  This  was  at  the  In'ginning  of  17GG.  Ix)ng  be- 
fore this  date,  however,  Burke  had  discerned  the  gravity  of  the 
Colonial  question,  and  had  with  characteristic  energy  set  himself 
to  master  it;  as  is  shown  by  his  Account  of  European  Settlements 
in  America,  published  in  1757. 

25,  26.  The  occasion  was  a  memorable  one  —  the  repeal  of 
the  Stamp  Act  under  Lord  Rockingham's  Ministry,  March  18, 
1766.  The  strength  and  sharpness  of  the  impression  made  upon 
Burke  are  attested  by  a  striking  passage  in  his  sjieech  \\\Kn\  Amer- 
ican Taxation,  wherein,  after  sketching  the  situation  within  the 
House  on  that  night,  and  the  bearing  of  the  great  leaders  there, 
he  goes  on  to  tell  how,  outside  the  walls  of  the  chamber,  "  the 
whole  trading  interest  of  this  Empire,  crammed  into  your  lobbies, 
with  a  trembling  and  anxious  expectation  w^aited,  almost  to  a 
winter's  return  of  light,  their  fate  from  your  resolutions ; "  and 
how,  when  the  result  was  announced,  "from  the  whole  of  that 
grave  multitude  there  arose  an  involuntary  burst  of  gratitude  and 
transport." 

Page  3,  15-17.  This  was  a  Mr.  Rose  Fuller,  now  in  the  Op- 
position along  with  Burke.  During  the  previous  session  it  was 
his"  proposition  to  repeal  the  Tea  Tax  which  furnished  the  occa- 
sion of  Burke's  famous  speech  upon  American  Taxation,  referred 
to  in  the  last  note. 


Burke  :   On  Conciliation  with  the   Colonies,       3ol 

Paok  4,  12-19.  Upon  the  Ministry  and  its  supporters,  Burke 
means  to  say,  rests  the  responsibility  for  devising  schemes  for 
carrying  on  government.  Schemes  proposed  by  the  Opi>ositiou 
are  not  merely  sure  to  receive  no  fair  consideration  from  the 
triumphant  majority,  but  are  apt  thereby  to  be  discredited  in 
advance,  and  ruined  for  future  usefulness.  The  scruple  is 
thoroughly  characteristic  of  Burke,  as  are  also  the  considerations 
which  induced  him  to  set  it  aside. 

Page  6,  9-14.  the  project  has  been  outlined  above  in  the 
Introductory  Note  to  this  sjHjech.  The  impossibility  of  assigning 
any  definite  values  to  the  factors  which  were  to  determine  the 
proiHirtionate  share  of  each  Colony,  as  well  as  the  cool  irony  of 
talking  about  proiK)rtion  at  all,  when  the  real  object  was  in  each 
case  to  extort  the  largest  sum  possible,  strongly  roused  Burke. 
His  imagination  at  once  pictures  the  scenes  Parliament  is  likely 
to  witness  in  attempting  to  carry  out  such  a  scheme,  and  he  sar- 
castically figures  these  as  the  splendors  and  sensations  of  a  new 
entertainment  provided  by  the  Ministry.  The  noble  lord  was 
Frederick  North,  Prime  Minister  from  1770  till  1782,  and  largely 
responsible  for  the  separation  of  the  Colonies  from  England.  He 
was  at  this  time  *  lord  *  only  by  couilesy  of  speech.  He  did  not 
come  into  his  earldom  until  his  father's  death  in  1790.  Sons  and 
younger  brothers  of  peers,  though  commonly  styled  lords,  are  only 
commoners  in  fact,  and  as  such  are  eligible  to  the  lower  house, 
where  they  often  seek  a  career.  A  notable  example  in  our  own  day 
is  Lord  Randolph  Churchill.  The  blue  ribbon  is  the  badge 
of  the  famous  Order  of  the  Garter,  a  decoration  rarely  conferred 
upon  commoners,  and  therefore  often  mentioned  l>y  Burke  in  his 
parliamentary  designation  of  this  Prime  Minister  to  whom  he  was 
so  long  opposed. 

Colony  agents.  In  default  of  any  regular  channel  through 
wliich  a  colony  could  make  its  condition  and  its  needs  known  to 
Parliament,  the  practice  was  to  secure  the  services  of  some  mem- 
ber of  Parliament  to  act  as  agent  for  the  colony,  and  to  look  after 
its  interests  in  the  general  legislation.  Burke  himself  was  such 
an  agent  for  New  York.  A  fuller  recognition  is  now  accorded 
the  colonics  of  K!;/'"-!.   i'l   tlif  ridditioi:   \n   tho   Ministry  of  a 


332  Notes, 

special  Secretary  of  State  for  tlie  Colonies.  But  the  Agents-Gen- 
eral are  still  maintained.  the  interposition  of  your  mace. 
When  the  ordinary  call  for  order  is  ineffective  to  quell  disturbance 
in  the  House,  the  Sergeant-at-Arms,  at  the  Speaker's  direction, 
takes  up  the  mace  from  the  table  where  it  lies,  and  with  it  con- 
fronts the  disorderly  members.  Before  this  symbol  of  the  majesty 
of  the  House,  they  are  expected  to  quail  and  sink  into  their  seats. 
There  is  in  the  Speaker's  power  but  one  last  resource  more 
dreaded  than  this,  and  that  is  to  "  name  "  the  disorderly  member. 

25,  26.  For  the  Address  see  Note  on  the  English  Consti- 
tution, page  322.  Its  menacing  front  in  this  case  was  the 
declaration  of  a  state  of  rebellion  in  Massachusetts,  and  a  call  for 
immediate  action  to  suppress  it.  One  of  the  heavy  bills  of 
pains  and  penalities  was  that  referred  to  in  the  opening  sen- 
tences of  this  speech  as  "  the  grand  penal  bill."  See  note,  p.  1, 
L  8. 

Pack  9,  5-12.  An  occasional  system  here  means  a  policy 
which  lacks  the  guidance  of  far-reaching  principles,  and  so  con- 
tents itself  with  makeshifts  to  meet  new  occasions  or  emergencies 
as  they  arise  —  a  policy  of  shifts.  The  object  referred  to  in  1.  G 
and  12,  and  rejxiatedly  throughout  this  discussion,  is  the  Colonies 
themselves. 

22.  That  is,  '  the  subject  of  their  commerce  has  been  treated,' 
etc.  The  gentleman  was  a  Mr.  Glover,  who  presented  a  petition 
from  the  West  India  planters  praying  that  peace  might  be  made 
with  the  American  Colonies.  His  literary  reputation,  compli- 
mented here,  is  now  quite  forgotten.  The  bar  is  a  movable  bar- 
rier or  rail  in  the  main  aisle,  beyond  which  none  but  officers  and 
members  are  allowed  to  pass.  All  other  persons,  if  permitted  to 
address  the  House,  must  do  so  standing  outside  this  barrier. 

Page  10,  9.  state,  where  we  should  say  statement.  See 
also  p.  56,  1.  4. 

21-23.  The  exports  from  England  to  Africa  consisted  almost 
wholly  of  articles  used  in  bai-ter  for  slaves,  who  were  shipped 
thence  to  the  Colonies.  The  exchange  on  the  coast  of  Africa  was 
but  an  incident  in  a  larger  transaction  beginning  in  England  and 
ending  in  America.     The  amount  of  these  exports  is,  therefore. 


Burke:   On  Conciliation  with  the   Colonies.      383 

rightly  added  by  Burke  to  the  total  of  direct  exports  to  the 
Colonies. 

Page  12,  10  ff.  To  secure  a  more  vivid  sense  of  the  uuexam- 
l»led  vigor  and  growth  of  the  Colonies  than  mere  statistics  could 
i^'ive,  Burke  pauses  here  to  turn  upon  the  subject  the  gorgeous 
illumination  of  this  paragraph.  The  attempt  is  a  daring  one,  and 
is  carried  out  with  characteristic  opulence  and  splendor.  The 
u^ood  taste  of  portions  of  it  has  been  questioned ;  particularly  the 
:icademic  and  conventional  fulsomeness  of  lines  24-35 ;  but  that 
wt)uld  hanlly  have  counted  as  a  fault  in  a  century  which  admired 
such  displays. 

22,  23.  ♦  Already  old  enough  to  read  the  deeds  of  his  fathers, 
an«l  abl«^  to  know  what  virtue  is;'  —  adapted  from  Viri^il,  Eel.  iv. 
2(J. 

27-'i.").  the  fourth  generation,  since  (icorge  III.,  was,  not  the 
son,  but  the  grandson  of  (leorge  II.  made  Oreat  Britain  by 
the  union  with  Scotland  in  1707.  The  higher  rank  of  peerage 
was  that  of  Earl,  to  which  Lord  Bathurst  had  been  advanced  from 
that  of  Baron,  the  lowest  hereditary  degree.  The  new  title  added 
to  the  honors  of  the  family  was  that  of  Baron  Apsley,  conferred 
upon  I^rd  Bathurst's  son  when  the  latter  became  Lord  Chancellor. 

Page  14,  10.  deceive,  i.e.,  beguile,  lighten,  —  an  echo  of  Latin 
usage  in  the  case  of  the  parallel  word,  fallere. 

27-29.  Alluding  to  the  famous  story  of  a  Roman  father  con- 
demned to  die  of  starvation,  but  secretly  nourished  by  his  daugh- 
ter from  her  own  breasts,  until  the  discovery  of  her  devotion  and 
the  admiration  it  aroused  brought  about  his  release. 

Page  15^  11.  The  Serpent,  —  a  constellation  within  the 
Antartic  circle. 

17.  run  the  longitude.  This  expression  seems  not  to  be 
current  with  nautical  men ;  although  they  naturally  interpret  it 
its  spoken  of  a  course  sailed  due  east  or  west,  so  that  the  ship's 
progress  is  reckoned  in  longitude  alone.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
context  seems  to  call  for  a  course  due  south,  or  nearly  so  —  fol- 
lowing a  great  circle  of  longitude,  or  meridian.  It  may  l>e  that 
Burke  has  used  the  phrase  here  stricMy,  as  the  sailors  understand 
it;    meaning  that  some   of  the   American   whalers,  after  their 


834  Notes. 

African  cruise,  sailed  westward  to  Brazil,  as  perhaps  they  might 
do  oil  their  homeward  cruise.  Or  it  may  be  that  without  strict 
question  of  nautical  interpretation  he  used  the  sonorous  phrase 
in  the  other  sense,  which  seemed  obvious  enough  to  him. 

Page  16,  10.  complexion,  in  its  original  signification  of 
temperament,  the  way  in  which  a  person  is  '  put  together ; '  and 
so  generally  in  Burke.  Passages  like  that  which  follows  here 
(pp.  IG,  17)  justify  Matthew  Arnold's  high  praise  of  Burke,  "be- 
cause almost  alone  in  England  he  brings  thought  to  bear  upon 
politics ;  he  saturates  politics  with  thought.'* 

Pack  18,  9,  10.  During  the  great  struggle  against  the  tyranny 
of  the  Stuarts. 

21-24.  Notably  in  Rome,  an  example  always  present  to 
Burke's  mind.     Paynk. 

Pack  19,  27-29.  popular,  —  democratic,  *of  the  jieople  and 
by  the  jxiople.'  merely  jx)pular,  —  wholly  so.  the  popular 
representative  —  the  portion  which  represents  the  people.  Cf. 
Burke's  more  explicit  statement,  p.  52,  1.  34  ff. 

31.  aversion  is  now  followed  by  /o,  after  the  manner  of  its 
synonyms,  dislike,  repugnance,  etc.  But  in  Burke's  time  the  force 
of  a  Latin  etymology  or  of  Latin  usage  was  still  strongly  felt,  and 
often  determined  both  idiom  and  meaning  of  English  words. 
Hence  the  from  in  this  case.  The  young  student,  whose  sense  for 
idiom  and  usage  needs  to  grow  more  sure  and  more  intelligent, 
should  not  fail  to  notice  these  cases  as  they  arise.  Even  though 
unacquainted  with  Latin,  he  should  lose  no  time  in  acquiring  the 
habit  of  consulting  directly  the  Latin  lexicon.  With  a  little 
resolution  and  a  little  help  at  first,  the  difficulties  will  speedily 
vanish ;  while  the  gain  in  conscious  power  and  in  grasp  of  lan- 
guage is  invaluable.  For  examples  at  hand  try  piety,  p.  14,  1.  27, 
communion,  p.  20,  1.  27,  and  constitution,  p.  22,  1.  21. 

Page  21,  29-31.  This  high  and  jealous  spirit  of  the  free-born 
in  Rome  in  the  midst  of  a  servile  class  may  be  illustrated  from 
almost  any  page  of  Shakespeare's  Julius  Ccusar.  Our  Teutonic  and 
Scandinavian  ancestry  was  habitually,  though  incorrectly,  called 
Gothic  by  writers  of  the  last  century.  such  were  the  Poles, 
for  at  this  time  they  had  ceased  to  be  an  independent  nation. 


Burlcc :    On    C>ifhu'li>itioji   irifli   the    Colonics,       33") 

Page  22,  6,  7.  The  loiui  seems  still  to  ho,  held  by  the  lawyers. 
The  law  is  still  considered  to  be  the  most  natural  avenue  to  a 
political  career. 

12.  Plantations  —  colonies,  the  plantings  of  a  new  society  or 
race.  The  term  is  regularly  so  used  in  acts  and  charters,  and  has 
no  reference  whatever  to  cultivation  of  the  soil. 

18-21.  In  the  hope  of  paralyzing  all  concerted  action  on  the 
part  of  the  colonists,  an  order  was  issued  forbidding  the  calling 
of  town-meetings  after  Aug.  1,  1774.  But  a  way  was  soon  found, 
and  within  the  limit  of  the  law,  to  hold  such  meetings  without 
calling  them.  The  last  called  meeting  before  that  date  was 
simply  adjourned  to  whatever  time  was  thought  desirable,  and  its 
legal  existence  was  thus  prolonged  indefinitely. 

25,  26.  This  was  Thurlow,  a  famous  lawyer,  and  afterwards 
Lord  Chancellor.  At  this  time  he  was  Attorney-General,  and  a 
conspicuous  figure  among  the  Ministers  on  the  Tresasury  Bench. 
Directly  in  front  of  him  was  the  narrow  space  of  open  floor; 
hence,  the  designation  of  his  position  as  "on  the  floor."  To 
guard  its  freedom  of  speech,  the  House  of  Commons  in  earlier 
times  used  its  utmost  powers  to  prevent  any  attempt  at  reporting 
its  debates.  It  thus  became,  and  still  is,  a  grave  breach  of  deco- 
rum for  a  member  to  use  pencil  and  paper  in  the  House  at  all, 
unless  it  were  to  make  a  brief  note  of  a  point  to  which  he  would 
reply.  Burke  thus  understands  Thurlow's  note-book  and  pencil, 
and  avails  himself  of  the  unusual  action  to  identify,  without 
naming  him,  the  person  he  means. 

32.  "Studies  pass  over  into  character,**  or  "What  we  pursue 
takes  shape  again  in  our  life ; "  a  famous  aphorism  from  Ovid, 
Heroid.  Ep.  xv.  83,  quoted  also  by  Bacon  in  his  essay  0/ 
Studies. 

Page  23,  15-17.  A  splendid  figure  developed  out  of  Horace's 
fine  phrase  in  the  opening  of  one  of  his  Odes  (Bk.  iv.  4),  com- 
paring Drusus  in  his  victorious  career  to  Jove's  eagle,  "tlx*  tluiii- 
der's  winged  minister,"  ministrum  fulminis  alitem. 

Paqr  24,  20,  27.  with  all  its  imperfections  on  its  head. 
Adapted  from  the  words  of  the  ghost  iu  Uandet^  Act  I.,  bceuo 
V.  79. 


336  Notes. 

Page  30,  8.    "To  the  despoiled  are  still  left  arms." — Juve- 
nal, Sat.  viii.  124. 
26.     Cf.  Acts  xix.  19. 

33.  more  chargeable,  involving  heavier  charge,  more  ex- 
pensive. 

Page  31,  35,  36.  Quoted  from  that  treasury  of  bathos,  The 
Art  of  Sinking  in  Poetry^  ch.  xi.  The  remote  source  of  the  lines 
in  « one  of  Dryden's  plays,*'  though  affirmed  by  various  editors, 
seems  to  lack  verification. 

Pack  32,  20,  27.  Sir  Edward  Coke,  a  famous  lawyer  under 
Elizabeth  and  James;  Attorney-General  in  1603,  when  Raleigh 
was  tried  for  treason.  "  While  the  prisoner  defended  himself 
with  the  calmest  dignity  and  self-possession,  Coke  burst  into  the 
bitterest  invective,  brutally  addressing  the  great  courtier,  as  if  he 
were  a*  servant,  in  the  phrase  long  remembered  for  its  insolence 
and  injustice,  *Thou  hast  an  English  face,  but  a  Spanish  heart!'*' 
—  Encyc.  Brit. 

Page  33,  14,  15.  ex  vi  t<rmlni  —  by  the  very  nature  of  the 
expression. 

Page  34,  29.  addressed  —  petitioned  the  Crown  in  an 
Address.     Cf.  Note  on  Forms  of  Procedure,  p.  322. 

Page  36,  7.  startle,  intransitive,  meaning  start.  Cf.  Dic- 
tionary. 

27-29.     From  Paradise  Lost,  11.,  592-594. 

Page  38, 12, 13.  American  financiers  —  financiers  who  would 
hope  to  raise  a  revenue  by  taxing  America. 

24.     Mr.  Rice. 

34.  shall  tell  you  —  'is  bound  to,*  'is  sure  to;*  with  fuller 
recognition  than  is  now  common  of  the  original  meaning  of  this 
auxiliary. 

Page  39,  3.  Acts  of  Navigation,  passed  first  in  1651,  re-en- 
acted later,  and  repealed  only  within  our  own  century.  They  were 
designed  to  secure  to  England  a  practical  monopoly  of  the  carry- 
ing trade  by  sea.  According  to  them,  no  vessel  of  another  realm 
might  bring  either  to  England  or  to  her  colonies  anything  except 
the  actual  products  of  that  realm.  Cf.  Encyclopedia,  s.  v.  Navi- 
gation Laws. 


Burke :   On  Conciliation  with  the  Colonies.       337 

22,  23.  the  pamphlet,  by  Dean  Tucker,  somewhat  famous  in 
the  discussions  of  this  time,  and  noticed  by  Johnson,  as  well  as  by 
liurke  in  his  previous  speech  on  American  Taxation. 

Tagk  41,  30.  For  a  clear  understanding  of  the  various  mat- 
ters referred  to  in  this  paragraph,  the  student  should  consult  some 
succinct  sketch  of  the  history  of  Ireland,  such,  for  example,  as 
may  be  found  in  Chambers's  Encyclopedia;  or,  better  still,  with 
the  help  of  the  Index,  the  subject  may  be  followed  up  in  Green's 
Short  History  of  the  English  People,  a  work  which  ought  always 
to  be  within  reach  of  the  student  of  English  Literature. 

Page  42,  17.  Sir  John  Davis,  or  rather,  Davies,  "Speaker 
of  the  First  Irish  House  of  Commons  in  1612."  —  Payne. 

33-35.  The  two  great  crises  which  have  occurred  in  the  course 
of  English  constitutional  history  are  the  revolt  of  the  Parliament 
against  Charles  I.,  and  the  revolution  which  brought  in  William 
and  Mary  and  established  the  principle  of  ministerial  responsibil- 
ity to  Parliament.  The  first  is  habitually  called  by  Englishmen 
the  Great  Rebellion,  and  the  other  the  Revolution.  Their  appli- 
cation of  these  terms  must  not  be  confounded  with  other  applicar 
tions  more  familiar  to  us. 

Page  43,  3,  4.  Burke  here  goes  much  further  than  the  facts 
with  regard  to  Ireland  warrant.  Ireland  has  never  been  "  a  prin- 
cipal part  of  England's  strength  and  name." 

21.  Cf.  Green's  Short  History.  The  parallel  between  Ireland 
and  Wales  is  close  and  cogent  so  far  as  concerns  the  era  of 
repression  and  savage  coercion  in  each.  On  the  other  hand,  the 
difference  in  the  remedial  measures  applied  to  the  two,  and  the 
difference  in  the  results,  have  furnished  a  powerful  argument  in 
the  discussion  of  the  Irish  question  since  Burke's  time.  Many 
parts  of  this  speech  gather  fresh  significance  when  read  in  the 
light  of  recent  English  history. 

33.     as  secondaxy  —  as  deputy.     The  w^ord  is  a  noun  here. 

Page  45,  25-30.  From  Horace,  Odes,  Book  I.  xii.  27,  com- 
paring the  advent  of  Augustus  upon  the  distracted  world  to  the 
rising  of  Castor  and  Pollux  (the  constellation  of  Gemini),  upon 
the  stormy  sea.  "  As  soon  as  the  bright  star  has  flashed  on  the 
view  of  the  sailors,  the  raging  sea  retires  from  the  rocksi  winds 


338  Notes, 

sink  and  clouds  disperse,  and  on  the  open  main  —  so  they  [the 
deities]  have  willed  it  —  the  threatening  swell  is  laid." 

Tack  46,  6.  shewen,  the  older  spelling  of  ahow  with  the  old 
English  plural  ending,  identical  with  that  of  modern  German. 

Pagk  48,  19.  "Nature  has  planted  [a  barrier]  in  the  way." — 
Juvenal,  Sat.  x.  152.  The  Latin  poets  and  the  English  IJible 
fortunately  were  both  familiar  to  liurke's  audience,  and  one  of  the 
notable  features  of  his  oratory  is  the  telling  effect  with  which  he 
marks  his  climaxes  of  thought  by  some  pregnant  text  from  these 
sources  or  from  the  English  poets. 

Page  49,  4,  5.     From  Comus,  1.  634,  G35,  inexactly  quoted. 

28.  temple  of  British  concord,  with  obvious  allusion  to  the 
Temple  of  Concord  in  Home,  in  which  the  Senate  met  during  the 
troublous  times  of  Catiline's  conspiracy.  The  richness  and  fre- 
quency of  allusion  in  Burke  far  transcend  the  possibility  of  anno- 
tation, but  they  sliould  not  be  overlooked  by  any  one  who  would 
feel  the  force  and  ( hai m  of  his  writing.  See,  for  example,  the 
whole  of  the  first  j)aragraph  on  p.  51. 

Page  50,  34,  35.  "  Not  mine  is  this  language,  but  what  Ofel- 
lus  taught  me ;  rustic,  but  of  wisdom  not  learned  in  schools."  — 
Horace,  Sat.  II.  ii.  2,  3. 

Page  55,  27,  28.  misguided  people,  sc.  of  England.  en- 
gaged in,  enlisted  in  favor  of. 

Page  62,  33,  34.  the  immediate  jewel  of  his  soul,  Othello, 
III.  iii.  156.  A  great  house,  etc.  —  even  slaves  feel  a  pride  in 
the  glory  of  a  princely  establishment  to  which  they  belong,  and 
are  willing  to  sacrifice  something  for  the  distinction  it  confers 
upon  them.     A  reminiscence  from  Juvenal,  Sat.  v.  66. 

Page  64,  10,  11.  Burke  lived  to  see  this  state  of  things  re- 
versed, and  to  approve  the  abolition  of  a  separate  Irish  legis- 
lature. —  Payne. 

Page  65,  5,  6.  "  Experiments  should  be  tried  on  objects  of  no 
value." 

Page  68,  4.  a  Treasury  Extent,  —  a  summary  process  of 
compelling  the  payment  of  debts  due  the  Crown  by  seizure  of 
persons,  lands,  and  goods. 

13.     empire  of  Germany,  —  the  so-called  Holy  Roman  Empire, 


Burke:    On  Conciliation  with  the  Colonies.       339 

already  little  more  than  a  name  in  Burke's  time,  and  formally 
brought  to  an  end  in  1806.      Cf.  Bryce's  Holy  Roman  Empire. 

Paok  69,  JJl.  "The  treasure-cliest  is  staked  on  the  game"  — 
the  utmost  resources  of  the  Colonies  will  thus  be  pledged  to  secure 
England's  success.     See  p.  70,  1.  21  ff. 

Page  70,  34,  35.     Paradise  Lost,  iv.,  9G,  97,  inexactly  quoted. 

Page  74,  3,  4.  warning  in  the  old  sense  of  summons  or  call. 
Sursum  corda,  "Lift  up  your  hearts  1"  —  the  exhortation  which, 
in  all  the  old  liturgies,  as  well  as  in  the  Prayer  Book,  prefaces 
the  sacrament  of  the  Communion. 

15,  IG.  "Happy  and  auspicious  may  it  prove!" — the  old 
Roman  invocation  prefacing  all  high  and  solemn  acts. 

Burke's  propositions,  it  will  be  noticed,  are  strictly  resolutions, 
as  he  calls  them.  If  passed,  they  would  have  been  mere  expres- 
sions of  the  views  and  opinions  of  the  assembly,  and  not  legisla- 
tion proper  in  the  form  of  an  Act  of  Parliament.  After  the 
recital  of  circumstances  (Resolutions  1-G),  instead  of  an  "enacting 
clause  "  to  make  that  which  follows  law,  we  have  in  each  section 
the  words,  "  That  it  may  be  proper  to."  —  In  this  way  it  was 
possible  to  bring  these  matters  to  discussion  and  to  a  vote ;  whereas 
legislation  would  at  l>est  have  incurred  many  delays,  and  in  this 
case,  with  the  Ministry  to  oppose  it  at  every  step,  it  could  hardly 
have  been  brought  to  the  consideration  of  the  House  at  all.  (See 
Note  on  Forms  of  Procedure,  p.  323.)  Still,  could  these  resolu- 
tions have  passed,  the  Ministers  would,  in  effect,  have  been 
instructed  to  introduce  and  forward  the  legislation  indicated,  or 
else  to  vacate  their  places. 


This  speech  shared  the  fate  which  attended  most  of  Burke's 
efforts.  Its  force  and  eloquence  commanded  utiiversal  admiration, 
but  were  powerless  to  bring  about  what  he  desired.  The  resolu- 
tions were  lost  by  an  overwhelming  majority.  What  actually  took 
place  is  stated  in  Ilansard^s  Parliamentary  History  as  follows :  ^ 

*  The  statement  appended  to  the  flrat  edition  of  this  ii|)4>cch,  and  copied  by 
alinoat  every  editor  nince,  that  "  upon  this  [flmt]  Reflolntion  the  previoiu  que** 
tiou  was  put  and  carrird,"  In  maiiifestly  in  error  oud  absurd. 


340  Note%, 

"  Mr.  Jenkiiison  iiiDvcd  tip-  iucstioii  iipc:, 

oliition.  Upon  this  the  liou.-j  diMd' •!.  .  .  .  ^'ta-  .  .  .  7^,  .Nut-.s, 
.  .  .  27<t.  So  it  passed  in  tlie  lu'gative.  lli'- xiond.  third,  toiirth 
jiihI  tliirt<'enth  Resolutions  had  also  tii<'  pri\iMU>  (jU'-tioii  jmt  (ni 
thtiii,     'Die  otlwrs  were  negativod." 

In  Anu'rican  j>nictice  the  lUdtiMn  ••  that  th.-  jii^n  i^us  (jip  >ti<ui 
be  now  put,"  is  a  wt'll-known  drvice  to  stop  debate,  and  to  force  a 
vote  on  the  main  tiuistinn  ]»<'nding  before  tlie  ;ussenibly.  It  is 
made  and  secomliMl  h_v  jM'i>ons  who  hope  to  ••any  tli-i  it.  and  th<'n 
tlif  main  <[ti»'>t ii.ii  inimrdiafely  afterwards,  if  it  laiLs,  tilings  ai'e 
oidy  as  ili(  y  wfic  Im-iuh'.  In  England, on  the  contrary,  tho  motion 
"  that  the  previous  question  be  put,"  is  a  device  1 
main  qnostion  altogftlior,  without  cominj^  to  any  dii-  ,  .  ^.,,.  ,,|m.ii 
it;  i>,  in  fact,  a  baokdiandfd  way  of  "  tablini;  "  it.  Tlif  motion 
is  nia<ie  and  seconded  by  persons  who  mean  to  vote  against  it; 
f,.r  ■>,.,., >i-,]ii,fT  to  Kni^dislj  theory,  the  a.«sfMnbly  is  not  at  lilM>rty  to 
(  I'lirtlitT  any  <iut'^!i«.n   uj>(>n   which    it   lia>  d.-ciilrd   thai    a 

Vol.'  ^hall  not  ]m'  tak.'ii.  Thus,  in  th.-  j'l-.-xMit  instance,  the  Minis- 
t<Tial  i«aity  nscd  the  -jufvioiis  (lUf^tioii  "  to  -vt  rid  of  l'>ink.'*s 
trouMtsoiiif  array  of  facts  without  cither  admittini,^  or  denying; 
them,  and  tlien  voted  down  the  i)olicy  he  babied  upon  tlio.^e  hicLs. 


LORD   CHATHAM. 


William  Pitt,  the  "Great  Commoner,"  afterwards  Earl  of 
Chatham,  was  born  in  1708,  was  educated  at  Eton  and  Oxford, 
and  entered  Parliament  in  1735.  His  remarkable  ix)wers  of 
oratory  and  his  fiery  spirit  soon  made  him  one  of  the  foremost 
men  of  the  Commons,  and  the  most  formidable  antagonist  of 
Walpole's  administration.  His  uncompromising  and  successful 
hostility  during  these  years  earned  for  him  the  King's  lasting 
resentment.  "NN'hen  Walpole  was  overthrown,  and  the  Opposition 
came  into  power,  Pitt's  mastery  in  the  House  should  have  been 
recognized,  and  a  seat  should  have  been  given  him  in  the  Ministry. 
But  it  was  long  before  the  King  could  be  brought  to  offer  him 
even  a  subordinate  jx)sition.  It  was  not  until  174G  that  he  became 
Paymaster  of  the  Forces ;  ten  more  years  passed,  and  every  other 
exixjriment  was  tried,  before  he  was  asked  to  become  Prime 
Minister.  At  this  time  he  was  confessedly  the  only  man  capable 
of  saving  England  from  the  desperate  straits  into  which  the 
weakness  and  wickedness  of  his  predecessors  had  brought  her. 
He  soon  won  for  her  far  more  than  all  that  had  been  lost.  He 
made  the  name  of  England  to  be  known  and  respected  in  every 
quarter  of  the  globe.  The  five  years  of  his  administration  are 
accounted  the  most  glorious  in  all  her  history.  For  five  years 
after  that  Pitt  was  out  of  office.  After  his  return  in  1760  with 
the  title  of  Earl  of  Chatham,  ill-health  prevented  him  from  taking 
an  active  part  in  the  administration  of  which  he  was  nominally 
the  head ;  and  he  retired  finally  from  office  two  years  later.  But 
his  interest  in  public  affairs,  and  especially  in  whatever  concenied 
the  greatness  of  England,  remained  undiminished  to  the  end. 
His  most  memorable  speeches  were  those  in  which  he  denounced 
that  pride  and  folly  which  was  driving  the  American  Colonies 


342  Notes, 

into  war ;  yet  he  could  not  endure  to  think  that  England  should 
ever  lose  these  jewels  from  her  crown.  In  1778,  on  learning  that 
a  motion  was  to  be  made  to  grant  to  the  Colonies  their  indepen- 
dence, he  struggled  up  from  his  sick-bed  to  make  a  passionate  and 
successful  protest  against  a  policy  that  would  dismember  England, 
and  let  her  "  fall  prostrate  before  the  House  of  Bourbon."  He 
was  already  a  dying  man.  At  the  close  of  the  speech  he  fell  in 
convulsions,  was  carried  out,  and,  aftt»r  lingering  a  few  days, 
breathed  his  last,  May  11,  1778. 


SPEECH   ON    AMERICAN   AFFAIRS. 

Reporters  of  the  last  century  rarely  attempted  to  do  more  than 
to  ^ive  the  general  drift  of  thought  and  argument;  at  their 
hands  a  fiery  eloquence  like  that  of  Chatham  was  sure  to  lose 
most  of  its  vital  quality.  Barely  five  of  his  sjieeches  seem  to 
have  been  written  out  by  competent  listeners  from  notes  taken 
on  the  spot ;  and  in  these  alone  have  we  any  clear  approximation 
to  what  was  actually  said.  The  one  we  have  chosen  for  this  vol- 
ume claims  to  have  had  Chatham's  revision ;  but  of  this  there  is 
no  certainty.  By  many  critics  it  is  accounted  his  master  effort. 
The  occasion  was  this :  The  assembling  of  Parliament  in  Novem- 
ber, 1777,  had  called  forth  the  usual  Address  to  the  Throne,  con- 
gratulating the  King  on  the  birth  of  a  princess,  indorsing  the 
measures  adopted  by  the  Ministry,  and  promising  to  support  the 
Crown  to  the  uttermost  in  its  struggle  with  the  Colonies.  Chatham 
seized  the  occasion  to  move  an  Amendment  to  the  Address,  and 
to  protest  once  more  against  the  injustice  and  folly  of  the  war. 

TEXTUAL  NOTES. 

Page  76,  5-7.  The  Minister  was  Lord  North.  See  note  to 
page  6. 

30,  31.  Adapted  from  Shakespeare,  Julius  Ccesar,  III.  ii.  123- 
125. 

Page  78,  21.  Lord  Amherst,  in  the  campaign  of  1758-1759, 
ending  in  the  capture  of  Quebec. 


Chatluim  :    On  American  Affairs.  343 

28.  The  force  under  General  Burgoyne,  which  surrendered  at 
Saratoga,  Oct  13,  1777.  "The  news  of  this  terrible  calamity 
gave  force'  to  the  words  with  which  Chatham,  at  the  very  time  of 
the  surrender,  was  pressing  for  peace." — Green's  History. 

33,  34.  in  any  event,  because  British  success  would  only 
serve  to  make  reconciliation  impossible.     See  p.  79,  1.  7-14. 

Page  79,  18.     Lord  Percy.  , 

Page  80,  8,  9.     Shakespeare,  Othello,  III.  iii.  349  ff. 

Page  82,  18.  Note  how  carefully  the  speaker  avoids  recogniz- 
ing the  validity  of  Washington's  military  title. 

Page  83,  20.  but  you  can  address.  A  special  use  of  the 
verb  address  growing  out  of  the  special  use  of  the  noun  explained 
in  the  Note  on  Forms  of  Procedure,  p.  322.  The  thought  is  ex- 
panded below,  1.  24,  25. 

Page  87,  13-23.  For  the  classes  separately  appealed  to  here, 
see  Note  on  the  House  of  I^rds,  p.  318. 

27.  The  walls  of  the  old  House  of  Lords  were  hung  with 
tapestry  representing  striking  scenes  in  English  history.  Among 
these  was  the  fight  with  the  Spanish  Armada,  in  August,  1588. 
Lord  Howard,  Admiral  of  the  English  fleet  on  that  occasion,  and 
presumably  conspicuous  on  the  tapestry,  was  the  ancestor  of  Ix)rd 
Suffolk  referred  to. 

Page  88,  20.  enormous,  in  the  sense  of  atrocious^  a  sense 
which  survives  in  the  kindred  noun  enormity. 


Chatham's  eloquence,  like  that  of  Burke,  was  all  in  vain  upon 
this  question.  The  amendment  was  rejected  by  a  vote  of  97 
to  24. 


EDMUND   BURKE. 


SPEECH   AT  BRISTOL. 

During  his  first  and  second  Parliaments,  Burke  sat  as  member 
for  Wendover.  At  the  dissolution  of  1774  he  lost  his  seat  be- 
cause the  friend  who  owned  the  borough,  and  who  had  given  him 
the  election,  was  now  in  need  of  money,  and  must  sell  the  seat  to 
some  one  who  could  pay  for  it.  Burke  was  proposed  for  a  little 
borough  in  Yorkshire,  and  his  election  was  actually  secured,  when 
there  appeared  on  the  scene  a  deputation  from  Bristol,  the  second 
city  in  the  kingdom,  urging  him  to  "  stand  "  for  them.  The 
honor  and  the  opportunity  were  too  great  to  be  neglected.  Burke 
waived  his  election  at  Malton,  hurried  to  Bristol,  and  after  an 
exciting  canvass  was  elected  as  one  of  the  two  representatives  of 
that  city.  In  thanking  his  constituents  after  the  election,  Burke's 
colleague  promised  strictly  to  obey  their  wishes  in  all  his  parlia- 
mentary action.  With  characteristic  independence,  Burke  took  a 
different  view  of  the  relation  between  a  representative  and  his 
constituents.  "Their  wishes,"  said  he,  "ought  to  have  great 
weight  with  him;  their  opinions,  high  respect;  their  business, 
unremitted  attention.  It  is  his  duty  to  sacrifice  his  repose,  his 
pleasure,  his  satisfactions  to  theirs ;  and,  above  all,  ever  and  in 
all  cases  to  prefer  their  interest  to  his  own.  But  his  unbiassed 
opinion,  his  mature  judgment,  his  enlightened  conscience,  he 
ought  not  to  sacrifice  to  you,  to  any  man,  or  to  any  set  of  men 
living.  Your  representative  owes  you,  not  his  industry  only,  but 
his  judgment;  and  he  betrays,  instead  of  serving  you,  if  he  sacri- 
fices it  to  your  opinion.  .  .  .  Government  and  legislation  are 
matters  of  reason  and  judgment,  and  not  of  inclination  ;  and  what 
sort  of  reason  is  that  in  which  the  determination  precedes  the  dis- 

344 


Burke :  Speech  at  Bristol,  1 1 "» 

cushion,  in  which  one  set  of  men  deliberate  and  another  decide, 
and  where  those  who  form  the  conclusion  are  perhaps  three  hun- 
dred miles  distant  from  those  who  hear  the  arguments?" 

For  six  years  the  proud  merchants  of  Bristol  were  content  to 
be  served  by  a  man  of  this  sort.  But  \i\)o\\  the  sudden  dissolu- 
tion of  Parliament  in  1780,  Burke  came  down  to  Bristol  to  find 
an  active  canvass  against  him  already  in  progress.  Calling  a 
meeting  of  the  Mayor  and  prominent  citizens,  he  rendered  an 
account  of  his  stewardship  in  the  speech  we  are  now  considering. 
Its  simplicity,  its  directness,  and  the  calm  dignity  of  its  tone,  are 
finely  suited  to  the  audience  and  the  occasion,  and  are  in  marked 
contrast  with  the  splendid  rhetoric  and  the  magnificent  movement 
of  the  speech  on  Conciliation  with  America.  But  in  devotion  to 
principle,  in  lofty  patriotism,  in  manly  courage,  in  all  that  makes 
the  difference  between  the  statesman  and  the  adroit  politician, 
Burke  is  the  same  in  both.  As  a  noble  defence  of  his  own  con- 
duct on  the  part  of  a  public  servant,  this  speech  is  unsurpassed. 

Burke's  arguments  presuppose  a  somewhat  broad  .acquaintance 
with  the  history  of  that  eventful  time,  and  especially  with  p]ng- 
land's  part  in  it,  whether  at  home  or  in  America,  Ireland,  France, 
and  the  East  Indies.  The  materials  for  such  a  synoptic  view  may 
be  found  in  Green's  Short  History  of  the  English  People,  chapter 
X.,  sections  ii.,  iii,,  iv.,  supplemented  by  topical  readings  from 
other  standard  works,  especially  Lecky's  England  in  the  Eigh- 
teenth Century. 

TEXTUAL  NOTES. 

Page  89,  13,  14.  the  means  of  honorable  service  —  his 
election  to  a  seat  in  Parliament. 

19.  For  the  general  conduct  of  elections,  see  note  on  the 
House  of  Commons,  p.  320.  In  the  United  States  all  elections  are 
"  contested ;  "  i.e.,  are  brought  to  the  test  of  actual  voting.  In 
England  such  is  not  always  the  case.  Where  there  is  no  ho}^  of 
carrying  the  election,  or  of  gain  from  agitation,  the  weaker  party 
often  saves  itself  trouble  and  expense  either  by  putting  forward 
no  candidates  at  all,  or  by  withdrawing  them  after  the  canva.ss 
\\'M  progressed  far  enough  to  demonstrate  its  futility.     lu  such 


346  NoUs. 

cases,  if  there  are  no  more  candidates  than  there  are  seats  to  fill, 
the  projjer  officer  "  returns  "  those  candidates  —  certifies  that  they 
are  duly  elected  —  without  actually  calling  for  the  votes.  Such 
would  seem  to  have  been  the  case  in  this  election  —  see  note  upon 
the  conclusion  of  this  speech.  For  vivid  portrayals  of  the  excite- 
ments and  strain  of  a  contested  election  in  England,  the  student 
should  consult  George  Eliot's  Middlemarch  and  Charles  Reade's 
Put  Yourself  in  His  Place. 

Pagk  91,  20-^50.  The  student  can  hardly  fail  to  note  the 
striking  application  which  Burke's  utterances  often  have  to  pres- 
ent conditions  in  our  own  politics  and  public  life.  Cf.  pp.  92-03, 
103,  el  jxussim.  This  is  due  to  his  habit  of  fixing  his  attention 
upon  the  principles  involved,  rather  than  upon  the  passing  forms 
of  life  and  thought. 

Pack  92,  24  if.  The  most  shameless  intrigues  and  hrilwry 
were  resorted  to  under  George  III.,  to  enable  him  to  control  the 
legislation  and  policy  of  the  realm,  that  he  might  rule  as  well  as 
reign.  See  Green's  Short  HiMory,  X.  ii.,  the  House  of  Commons 
and  the  Crown.  Burke  himself  has  left  a  startling  picture  of  this 
state  of  affairs  in  his  Thourfhts  on  the  Present  Discontents.  A 
court  party  in  English  politics  seems  happily  now  no  longer  pos- 
sible. The  initial  step  towards  reform  Burke  had  already  been 
urging  with  characteristic  energy  in  the  session  just  ended  (see 
p.  96,  1.  2  ff).  It  was  —  not  unlike  our  own  Civil  Service  Re- 
form —  an  attempt  to  cut  short  the  means  for  bribery  by  greatly 
curtailing  the  lucrative  offices  within  the  gift  of  the  Crown.  (Cf. 
Burke's  speech  on  Economical  Reform,  delivered  Feb.  11,  1780.) 
The  final  steps  in  this  same  reform  were  the  redistricting  of  the 
realm  and  the  extension  of  the  franchise  in  such  a  way  as  to  make 
the  House  of  Commons  a  body  really  representing  the  people. 
See  Macaulay's  speech  on  the  Reform  Bill,  p.  252  ff.  of  this 
volume. 

35.  violate  their  consciences;  e.g.,  by  pledging  absolute 
subserviency  to  the  dictates  of  their  constituents.  This  is  the 
"  infallible  receipt  "  spoken  of  below. 

Page  96,  31.  This  was  in  August,  1776,  when  Washington 
was  obliged  to  abandon  New  York.     The  victory  seemed  so  deci- 


Burke:  Speech  at   Bristol  oAl 

.«»ive  tltal  lurtlior  icftisliiuco  «)ii  lli<-  paii  m1  i1i,'  (  uloiiirr,  «iio 
tliought  to  l>e  iii)ix>ssible. 

I*AiJK  98,  .J.  wounds  .  .  .  yet  greeu;  i.e.,  Iresh  —  a  Shake- 
siiearian  touch. 

li.     state  =  statement;  a  frequent  use  in  Burke's  time. 

20  ff.  For  a  full  account  of  Irish  affairs  as  touched  uix>n  in 
this  section,  consult  Lecky's  England  in  the  Eighteenth  Centurt/. 
chapter  xvii.  The  following  sketch,  adapted  from  Profe-ssor 
Goodrich,  will  serve  to  supplement  and  explain  what  is  said  in 
the  sjieech  :  — 

Ireland  at  this  time  had  a  parliament  of  her  own,  but  not 
Home  Rule,  since  all  legislation  was  really  dictated  by  the  British 
Ministry.  Under  the  Navigation  Laws  almost  no  foreign  trade 
was  allowed  her,  save  with  England,  and  that  was  greatly  re- 
stricted in  order  to  protect  English  industries.  At  last  the  coun- 
try was  reduced  to  such  distress  that  in  1778,  and  again  in  1771), 
it  was  proposed  to  remove  the  restrictions,  and  allow  her  a  consid- 
erable participation  in  the  commerce  of  the  world.  Though  this 
was  vehemently  opi>osed  by  Bristol,  in  common  with  other  great 
commercial  towns,  Burke  felt  himself  bound  to  supi)ort  the  meas- 
ure. The  ministry,  however,  l)ecame  alarmed  at  the  general  out- 
cry, and  no  effectual  relief  was  secured  in  either  session.  The 
Irish,  indignant  at  this  treatment,  copied  the  example  of  the 
Americans,  and  formed  associations  pledged  to  abstain  from  the 
u.se  of  all  English  manufactures.  In  August,  1770,  the  French 
and  Spanish  fleets  swept  the  Channel  without  resistance,  and 
threatened  a  descent  upon  Ireland.  England,  with  her  own 
coasts  in  danger,  and  her  armies  engaged  in  America  and  India, 
could  spare  no  more  troops.  The  Irish  people  flew  to  arms. 
With  no  commission  or  authority  whatever,  save  that  of  tln» 
necessity  of  national  defence,  the  celebrated  corps  of  Irish  Volun- 
teers, consisting  of  over  forty  thousand  men,  was  organized,  armed, 
an«l  oflicered  within  a  few  weeks.  The  Irish  Parliament,  meeting 
shortly  after,  approved  the  conduct  of  the  Volunteers  by  a  unani- 
njous  vote  of  thank.s.  With  these  troops  at  their  command,  they 
sent  a  significant  Address  to  the  King,  declaring  that  '•  it  was  not 
by  temporary  expedients,  but  by  a  free  trade  that  the  nation  was 


348  NoUs. 

to  be  saved  from  impending  ruin."  To  enforce  this  Address, 
they  limited  the  "supply"  they  granted  the  Crown  to  the  jK^riod 
of  six  months  instead  of  the  customary  two  years.  It  was  now 
clear  that  Ireland  would  follow  the  American  Colonies  in  rebel- 
lion, unless  the  Ministry  yielded  at  once.  Hence  the  instanta- 
neous concessions  so  graphically  described  on  page  100.  P>en 
the  woollen  trade,  —  the  "sacred  fleece,"  —  which  the  English  had 
guarded  with  such  jealous  care,  was  thrown  open  to  the  Irish. 

Pagk  100,  1.  It  was  the  Irish  House  of  Commons  which  re- 
fused to  make  any  new  grant  to  the  English  Crown. 

27,  ff.  After  their  experiences  during  the  seventeenth  century. 
Englishmen  came  to  regard  a  standing  army  in  the  hands  of  the 
King  as  a  standing  menace  to  their  liberties.  By  the  Bill  of 
Bights  (1G79)  it  was  declared  illegal  to  raise  and  maintain  such 
an  army  except  by  consent  of  Psifliament.  Ever  since  that  time 
the  maintenance  and  discipline  of  the  English  army  has  been 
authorized  each  year  anew  —  and  for  a  single  year  —  by  a  sixicial 
Act  of  Parliament  called,  somewhat  oddly,  the  Mutiny  Act.  In 
the  flush  of  success  and  of  national  enthusiasm  at  this  time,  the 
Irish  denied  the  validity  in  Ireland  of  all  Acts  of  the  English 
Parliament,  though  they  did  not  abate  in  the  least  their  loyalty  to 
the  King  of  England,  who  was  also  their  King.  English  Acts 
being  thus  inoperative,  and  the  civil  law  alone  being  in  force,  it 
became  impossible  to  maintain  military  discipline  —  not  among 
the  Volunteers,  for  their  conduct  was  a  matter  of  national  pride 
—  but  among  the  royal  troops  in  Ireland.  The  Irish  Parliament 
with  great  spirit  seized  the  opportunity  to  prepare  a  Mutiny  Act 
for  Ireland,  backed  it  by  an  overwhelming  vote,  and,  in  accord- 
ance with  the  regular  procedure,  sent  it  to  the  English  Ministry 
for  approval  —  a  challenge  to  acknowledge  their  independence. 
The  Bill  came  back  with  no  other  change  save  the  loss  of  those 
words  which  limited  its  action  to  a  single  year.  At  this  counter- 
challenge  a  panic  seized  Parliament.  It  could  not  be  rallied  to 
restore  the  expunged  words,  and  the  Act  passed  in  that  form. 
The  maintenance  of  royal  troops  in  Ireland  was  thus  to  be  made 
perpetual,  and  independent  of  control  by  either  Parliament ;  a  state 
of  affairs  fraught  with  danger  to  the  liberties  of  both  countries. 


linrkr:   Sp /'  "^   lir'tstnl.  349 

VMiV.  101,  14-lU.  Iturki!  nviuisukmi  Kiij^lisli  jtritU;  l>y  urjjiiig 
iiH'a«ures  for  the  relief  of  IreluiMl  in  spite  of  the  seUi.sh  op|)OKitiuii 
of  his  constituents.  The  humiliatiou  of  Great  Britain,  —  in 
ln'ing  terrified  into  making  concfssions.  uud  in  the  j Kussair**  of 
the  Perjietual  Mutiny  Act. 

21,  ff.  The  si)ecial  jwint  of  iliis  rcU-riMuf  i«)  Anuiiiuii  uiiaii.'s 
conies  out  on  page  103.  The  news  of  the  loss  of  Burgoyne's 
army  reached  England  at  the  end  of  the  session,  lX*ceniV>er,  1777. 
After  the  holiday  recess  Ix)rd  North  amazed  all  parties  alike  by 
taking  this  "  well-chosen  hour  of  defeat "  to  offer  to  the  Ameri- 
cans in  effect  the  very  measures  of  conciliation  which  Burke  had 
urge<l,  and  which  Lord  North  had  refused,  three  years  before. 
At  the  same  time  was  .sent  out  the  Commission  described  below. 

Pagk  103,  27.  Beauchamp — pronounced  Bvecham.  The 
student  should  make  sure  of  the  pronunciation  of  unfamiliar 
names  encountered  in  his  study. 

Pagk  104,  27.  For  the  frantic  tumult  about  Popery,  see 
the  next  section  of  this  speech  (p.  108  ff.)  and  the  notes. 

Page  106,  2,  3.  The  Act  of  1780  merely  allowed  an  insolvent 
debtor  to  establish  the  fact  of  his  insolvency  before  a  proi^r 
court,  and  left  the  court  to  decide  whether  he  should  or  should 
not  be  imprisoned.  Moreover,  release  from  imprisonment  was 
not  release  from  the  debt,  for  the  payment  of  which  his  future 
earnings  were  liable.  Imprisonment  for  debt  was  not  finally 
abolished  in  England  until  1869. 

12.  mistaken,  in  its  original  and  natural  meaning  of  taken 
tnronglyy  misunderMood.  By  a  singular  sliift  this  word,  strictly 
a  passive  participle,  has  come  at  last  to  Iw  practically  active  in 
meaning,  as  though  it  were  mistakintj.  It  has,  in  fact,  displaced 
this  last  in  all  attributive  uses. 

Pagk  100,  14, 15.  News  of  the  tragic  end  of  Captain  Cook's 
famous  voyage  had  but  lately  reached  England,  and  the  general 
interest  awakened  in  the  matter  gave  iK)int  to  Burke's  expre.Hsion. 

22.  This  section  of  the  speech  is  worthy  of  the  closest  study, 
whether  we  regard  its  theme,  its  broad  statesmanship  and  human- 
ity, its  clear  and  cogent  argument,  or  the  courage  and  skill  dis- 
pkiyed  in  defending  au  unpopular  cause. 


350  Notes, 

For  a  long  time  the  legal  position  of  lloman  Catholics  in  Eng- 
land had  been  exceedingly  precarious.  Outrageous  laws  against 
them  had  been  enacted  in  the  passion  and  intolerance  of  a  previ- 
ous age.  Although  these  laws  ha<l,  in  large  part,  been  allowed  to 
drop  out  of  actual  us<%  with  characteristic  English  conservatism 
they  were  allowed  to  stand  on  the  Statute  Book.  They  thus  be- 
came ready  weapons  in  the  hands  of  private  avarice  or  revenge, 
as  is  shown  in  the  speech  (pp.  111-115).  In  1778  the  injustice 
and  disgrace  of  this  state  of  things  l>ecanie  intolerable  to  fair-* 
minded  men ;  and  a  Relief  Bill,  annulling  the  worst  of  the  penal 
acts,  was  passed  without  even  a  call  for  a  division  in  either 
House,  so  unanimous  was  the  conviction  concerning  it  (p.  118). 
But  the  old-time  fanaticism  of  the  masses  had  only  l>een  slumber- 
ing. At  the  passage  of  the  Belief  Bill  it  suddenly  flashed  again 
into  flame.  The  ♦♦  l^rotestant  Association  "  was  fonned,  an  organ- 
ization i)ledged  to  bring  al>out  the  re-enactment  of  the  annulled 
law  and  to  prevent  any  further  measures  of  relief.  Under  such 
stimulus  madness  spread  far  and  fast.  Rioting  soon  l)egan  in 
Edinburgh  and  (Jlasgow,  where  furious  mobs  destroyed  the 
houses  and  property  of  Catholics  and  of  those  suspected  of  sym- 
jtathi/ing  with  them.  After  months  of  fitful  disorder  in  various 
parts  of  the  realm,  matters  culminated  in  June,  1780,  in  an  at- 
tempt which  recalls  a  very  recent  chapter  in  our  own  history  — 
but  with  results  more  immediately  tragic  than  in  our  case.  A 
monster  j^tition,  calling  for  immediate  repeal  of  the  Relief  Bill, 
was  prepared;  and  Lord  George  Gordon,  a  leader  in  the  agita- 
tion, undertook  to  lay  it  before  Parliament  in  person,  and  at  the 
head  of  an  army  of  his  followers.  On  the  afternoon  of  June  2, 
three  great  bodies  of  men,  wearing  blue  cockades  and  marching 
by  different  roads,  met  in  front  of  the  Parliament  building  just 
as  the  Houses  were  assembling.  The  petition  was  presented  as 
planned.  The  roaring  mob  surged  in,  filled  all  the  courts,  stair- 
ways, and  lobbies,  insulted  and  outraged  members,  and  for  many 
hours  held  the  Houses  in  a  state  of  siege.  At  nightfall  it  dis- 
persed to  l)egin  its  work  of  pillage  and  destruction  elsewhere. 
The  five  days  and  nights  that  followed  were  a  veritable  reign  of 
terror.     All  authority  was  paralyzed.     The  city  was  completely  at 


Burh' :  Speech  at  Bristol,  351 

tlio  mercy  of  tho  inoh.  For  an  admirable  picture  of  the  scenes 
in  I^ndoi),  the  student  is  referred  to  Dickens's  Barnahy  Iludge. 
TIk!  liistory  of  the  whole  matter  may  be  read  in  Lecky's  England 
in  the  Kighteenth  Century^  chapter  xiii. 

P.\(JK  109.  Bristol  had  sympathized  with  the  "No  Popery" 
Miovemont,  and  had  had  its  share  of  disorder  as  well.  There  is 
Ljrave  irony,  therefore,  in  Burke's  remarks  here  and  on  page  116. 

Pa(JK  111,  Ifi.  pious,  in  the  old  Roman  sense  of  reverent 
attitude  ttiward  (dl  natural  claims,  whether  from  above,  or  around, 
or  Iniueath  us;  —  here  used  with  special  reference  to  the  claims  of 
humanity  and  justice.  Students  of  Latin  should  look  up  in  this 
connection  the  various  connotations  of  Virgil's  pius  JEneas. 

20,  21.  the  saying  mass.  The  student  will  notice  the 
change  in  this  idiom  since  Burke's  time.  Wherover  the  gerund 
has  Income  so  nearly  like  a  common  noun  as  to  take  an  adjective 
modifier,  the  noun-construction  is  now  commonly  extended  to  its 
object  as  well  —  "saying  ma.ss,"  or  else  "Mc  saying  o/mass." 

Page  112,  18.     Revolution.     See  note  to  p.  42,  1.  33-:35. 

Pack  113,  27-30.  The  children  of  Catholic  families  were  com- 
monly educated  in  France,  under  circumstances  not  at  all  calcu- 
lated to  inspire  in  them  patriotism  and  a  love  for  free  government. 

Pack  114,  9.  For  the  Talbots,  consult  an  Encyclopaedia  or 
Biographical  Dictionary. 

Page  116,  21  ff.  Writers  and  speakers  of  the  last  century  had 
a  notable  fashion  of  diversifying  their  compositions  with  what 
they  called  "characters,"  —  elalM)rate  and  rhetorical  descriptions 
of  jwrsons,  —  an  example  of  which  we  have  alreatly  encountered 
in  this  speech.  An  academic  flavor  and  fulsomeness  almost 
always  characterize  these  passages,  and  in  this  instance  these 
qualities  are  the  more  conspicuous  because  of  the  general  sim- 
plicity and  directness  of  the  context. 

Page  117,  4.  peculium  —  "a  special  fund  for  private  and  i^r- 
sonal  uses."  The  student  will  be  interested  to  trace  the  origin  of 
this  woni  from  the  Latin  pecus,  and  the  development  of  meaning 
in  its  English  cognates  and  derivatives,  peculiar^  jtecun'mryy  pecu- 
Ifttf,  and  fee.  Consult  the  Latin  Lexicon  and  the  Etymological 
Dictionary. 


352  Notes, 

13,  14.     The  "  Nullum  Tempus  Act.**     See  Lecky,  Index,  8.v. 

Pack  121,  0.  The  most  Protestant  part  of  this  Protest- 
ant Empire  was,  of  course,  th«  American  Colonies.  Compare 
what  liurke  says  of  them  in  his  Speech  on  Conciliation,  p.  20  of 
this  volume. 

Pagk  125,  10-14.  The  persecutions  under  Philip  of  Spain, 
carried  out  by  the  bloody  Alva.  See  Motley's  Rute  of  the  Dutch 
Republic.  Many  craftsmen  of  the  I^w  Countries  found  refu!L,'o 
in  Kngland,  and  planted  their  trades  there. 

33.  Austria,  as  the  successor  of  the  ♦•  Holy  Roman  Emi»ire," 
was  the  imix»rial  court  of  Eurojie.  Russia  was  not  yet  accorded 
that  rank ;  the  French  and  German  Empires  were  yet  to  be. 

Pack  126,  \\.  The  minbter  was  Necker,  the  famous  banker 
and  financier  ot  France. 

Pagk  127,  8-12.  This  was  Thurlow.  See  note  to  \>.  22, 
1.  25,  26. 

Paok  132,  29.  our  resolves  —  the  resolution  refusing  tore- 
peal  the  Relief  Bill.     See  p.  l:U,  1.  7  fF. 

Pagk  133,  5,  6.  read  three  times,  passed  the  three  formal 
readings  which  mark  the  regular  stages  in  the  progress  of  an  Act 
through  the  House.     See  Note  on  Forms  of  Procedure,  p.  323. 

f).     offences  of  presumption  —  presumed  offences. 

Pagk  134,  5.  lean  more  to  the  Crown,  8upiK)rt  the  kingly 
power  and  prerogative.     See  note  to  p.  113,  1.  27-30. 

25.  "  No  man  ever  touched  with  such  force  that  proud  and  cruel 
spirit  which  actuates  a  people  who  hold  others  in  subjection.  It 
was  just  the  spirit  of  the  Athenian  mob  toward  their  colonies, 
and  of  every  Roman  toward  the  provinces  of  the  empire,  and  it 
was,  no  doubt,  one  principal  cause  of  the  American  war."  —  Pito- 
FKSSOR  Goodrich. 

Pagk  135,  31  £f.  An  expansion  of  his  own  famous  utterance 
in  the  Speech  on  Conciliation  (p.  32)  :  "  I  do  not  know  the  method 
of  drawing  up  an  indictment  against  a  whole  people." 

Pagk  136,  30.  help  it,  not  in  the  sense  now  common,  of  pre- 
vent it.  It  is  wortli  while  to  notice  how  the  scathing  flash  of 
irony,  with  which  the  paragraph  opens,  furnishes  the  heat  and 
convincing  force  with  which  the  orator  resumes  and  welds  together 


Burke:  Sptu  Hrlatol.  863 

:is  one  the  various  topics  with  which  he  has  separately  dealt.  IIo 
ha<l  mid  the  same  before  (p.  108),  but  now  the  underlying  unity 
is  felt. 

•iO.  In  these  concluding  paragraphs  Burke  addresses  himself 
to  those  practical  arguments  —  alas,  too  familiar  to  us  all !  —  which 
may  generally  be  counted  on  to  bring  to  terms  a  politician  some- 
what too  high-minded.  If  such  words  as  these  could  be  read  and 
taken  to  heart  by  all  in  our  country  who  are  to  exercise  the  public 
trusts  of  citizenship,  we  should  have  a  very  different  condition  of 
tilings  from  that  which  we  see  all  about  us. 


Upon  the  conclusion  of  this  speech  resolutions  were  adopted  by 
the  meeting,  warmly  commending  Mr.  Burke's  conduct  in  Parlia- 
ment, and  asking  him  to  present  himself  as  a  candidate  for  the 
coining  election.  Having  received  this  indorsement,  Mr.  Burke 
announced  his  candidacy  in  the  usual  manner,  and  l>egan  his 
canvass.  Two  days  later  one  of  his  three  competitors  fell  dead, 
overcome  with  the  excitement  and  strain  of  the  contest.  Next 
morning  —  the  very  morning  of  the  election — Mr.  Burke,  satis- 
fied that  his  election  was  hopeless,  publicly  withdrew  —  "  declined 
the  poll "  —  in  a  little  speech  which  is  a  fit  pendant  to  the  one 
just  rea<l.     It  may  be  found  in  any  complete  edition  of  his  works. 

Through  the  influence  of  Lord  Rockingham,  Burke  was  at  once 
returned  from  Malton,  and  sat  for  that  borough  till  the  close  o( 
his  political  life. 


LORD   ERSKINE. 


TnoMAR,  Lord  Erskink,  was  born  in  Edinburgh,  in  1750,  of  a 
family  famous  in  Scottish  history,  but  at  tliis  time  sadly  reduced  in 
circumstances.  He  grew  to  be  a  lad  of  nmch  brightness  and 
promise,  and  his  ambition  was  to  enter  a  learned  profession ;  but 
the  exi^ense  of  an  education  could  not  be  met.  At  fourteen  years 
of  age  he  was  sent  to  sea  as  a  midshipman ;  and  he  silent  eleven 
years  of  service  in  the  navy  and  the  army  before  he  found  it  pos- 
sible to  prepare  himself  for  the  calling  in  which  he  afterwards 
attained  distinction  as  an  advocate  and  orator.  Meantime  he  had 
married  at  twenty,  and  was  struggling  to  maintain  his  growing 
family.  At  the  age  of  twenty-eight  he  was  admitted  to  the  bar. 
His  first  case,  coming  fortunately  not  long  afterwards,  revealed 
such  surprising  courage,  eloijuence,  and  forensic  skill,  that  his 
fame  and  fortune  were  instantly  made.  His  talents  were  engaged 
in  the  most  celebrated  trials  of  those  times.  In  1793  he  entered 
Parliament.  His  brilliant  career  culminated  in  1806,  when  the 
dream  of  his  life  was  realized,  and  he  became  Lord  Chancellor  of 
England.  This  honor,  however,  was  not  long  to  be  his ;  for  he 
had  to  vacate  the  woolsack  in  the  next  year,  on  the  downfall  of 
the  Grenville  Ministry.  His  later  life  again  was  clouded  by  jx)V- 
erty  and  by  that  idleness  to  which  English  etiquette  condemns 
distinguished  lawyers  who  have  once  reached  the  highest  position 
open  to  the  profession.  He  died  in  1823,  in  Scotland-,  on  the 
only  visit  he  ever  made  to  the  native  land  he  had  left  fifty  years 
before. 

The  effect  of  his  oratory  upon  those  who  heard  him  was  surpris- 
ing. Into  the  dull,  heavy  style  of  the  courts  he  infused  a  warmth, 
a  daring,  an  imaginative  play,  unknown  l>efore  his  time.  Ilis  most 
memorable  speeches  were  delivered  before  the  Court  of  the  King's 

354 


Erskine:    In  the  Stockdale  Case,  355 

Il«'nch,  and  from  this  series  the  one  in  behalf  of  Stockdale  has  Itcen 
chosen  as  an  example  of  argument  and  eloquence  specially  ad- 
dressed to  a  jury.  The  circumstances  were  these  :  During  the  slow 
progress  of  the  trial  of  Warren  Hastings,  a  Scotch  clergyman  had 
written,  and  a  Mr.  John  Stockdale  of  London  had  published,  a 
pamphlet  defending  Mr.  Ila-stings,  and  criticizing  severely  the  con- 
<luct  of  the  pro.secution.  The  managers  brought  the  matter  l)efore 
the  House,  and  secured  an  order  directing  the  Attorney-General  to 
prosecute  Mr.  Stockdale  for  libel.  The  liberty  of  the  press  was 
a  question  which  had  already  been  before  the  public  in  two  sepa- 
rate aspt»cts.  Though  direct  censorship  had  ceased  shortly  after 
the  downfall  of  the  Stuarts,  there  long  remained  two  formidable 
engines  of  coercion  which  the  political  party  in  jiower  could  use  — 
and  did  use  unmercifully  —  to  prevent  the  publication  of  matters 
distasteful  to  it.  One  was  the  power  of  Parliament  to  punish  by 
summary  imprisonment  anything  which  it  deemed  a  breach  of  its 
ancient  privileges;  and  such  it  considered  the  publication  of  any 
reix)rt  of  its  proceedings,  sjive  such  as  itself  had  authorized  (see 
note  to  page  22).  But  the  battle  upon  this  point  had  recently 
\^een  fought  out;  the  Commons,  after  a  fierce  struggle,  had 
yielde<l ;  and  since  that  time  reporters  have  regularly  had  admis- 
sion to  the  gallery  of  the  House.  Prosecution  for  "  seditious 
lil>el "  was  the  other  agency  employed ;  and  it  was  at  that  time 
rendered  far  more  effective  for  mischief  than  it  could  l>e  now,  by 
the  following  means :  Instead  of  submitting  to  the  jury  the  whole 
question  of  the  guilt  or  innocence  of  the  defendant  in  view  of  ail 
the  facts  and  motives  shown,  as  was  done  in  the  case  of  every 
other  crime  and  misdemeanor,  the  practice  in  lilx;l  suits  was  to 
allow  the  jury  to  consider  nothing  l)eyond  the  question  whether 
the  defendant  had  or  had  not  published  the  matter  as  alleged. 
The  vital  question  of  the  guilt  or  innocence  of  the  publication 
was  reserved  for  the  decision  of  the  judge  alone;  and  in  tl»'s«> 
]X)litical  suits  he  was  often  an  interested  party.  ««  Writers,  pros- 
ecuti'd  by  an  officer  of  the  crown,  without  the  investigation  of  a 
grand  jury,  and  denied  even  a  trial  by  their  peers,  were  placed  l>e- 
yond  the  pale  of  the  law."  This  vicious  principle  hail  been  clearly 
revealed  by  tlic  jxTSPoiitions  which  Wilkes  cnduriMl,  and  in  the 


866  Notes, 

Letters  of  Junius.  Mr.  Erskine  had  attacked  it  with  splendid 
force  and  skill  in  his  defence  of  the  Dean  of  St.  Asaph's,  claiming 
for  the  jx^rson  accused  of  libel  the  same  right  which  wa.s  accorded 
to  one  accused  of  any  other  crime  or  misdemeanor  known  to  the 
law  of  England  —  the  right  to  be  tried  by  the  jury  on  the  whole 
issue  raised.  Mr.  Erskine's  argument  on  that  occasion  was  before 
judges  alone,  and,  naturally  enough,  he  was^  unceremoniously  over- 
ruled. But  the  matter  was  not  to  be  thus  summarily  disposed  of. 
The  public  was  aroused.  The  trial  of  Stockdale  soon  afforded  an 
opportunity  of  bringing  the  question  before  the  jury  itself.  Their 
answer  was  the  verdict  "  Not  Guilty,"  rendered  in  defiance  of  all 
precedent,  and  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  the  publication  was  ad- 
mitted. It  wa.s  the  last  case  of  libel  tried  under  the  old  rifjime. 
In  1702  Parliament  was  constrained  to  register  this  triumph  of 
freedom  by  establishing  in  the  Libel  Act  the  very  principle  for 
which  Mr.  Erskine  had  contended. 

Among  the  champions  of  liberty  Erskine  stands  thus  linked 
with  Milton,  whose  eloquent  appeal  "for  the  liberty  of  unli- 
censed printing,"  —  his  Areojmgitica  —  was  the  trumpet-call  which 
opened  the  attack  on  this  stronghold  of  tyranny.  The  history  of 
this  interesting  subject  may  be  found  in  May's  Constitutional 
History  of  England^  chapter  ix. 

TEXTUAL  NOTES. 

Page  141,  5-7.  The  reference  is  to  Erskine's  political  friends, 
Fox  and  the  Whigs,  and  especially  Burke,  whom  he  greatly  ad- 
mired. See  relocated  references  to  them  farther  on  in  this 
speech. 

Page  142,  10.  information.  The  precise  meaning  of  techni- 
cal terms  should  be  ascertained  u^wn  the  student's  first  encounter 
with  them.  See  also,  innuendoes,  fine,  farm,  rent,  and  others 
farther  on. 

Page  152,  18  ff.  Compare  with  this  Macaulay's  description 
of  the  famous  trial  in  his  Essay  on  Warren  IIa.stings. 

Page  153,  8.  ■without  prospect  of  conclusion,  Tlie  trial 
dragged  on  for  seven  years.  One  hundred  and  forty-eight  days 
were  actually  spent  in  its  sessions. 


Frxhine:  In  the  Stockdale  Case,  357 

Pa«;k  155,  Jl.  This  great  hall  was  Westminster  Hall,  built 
I>y  William  Uufus.  It  .still  stands,  and  forms  part  of  the  new 
Houses  of  Parliament.  The  Court  of  the  King's  Bench,  before 
which  Erskine  was  si^aking,  sat  under  the  same  roof,  and  in  a 
chamlHjr  directly  adjoining  it.     See  also  p.  178. 

Pa<;k  156,  27.     brought  home  to  —  intrusted  to,  undertaken 

''>■• 

1*a(;k  159,  22.  government,  in  the  parliamentary  sense  ex- 
plained in  the  next  sentence. 

27.  I  ■wish  he  -would.  To  atlmit  that  the  Tory  party  then 
in  )x)W('r  wa.s  a  faction  would  be  to  give  up  the  poetical  battle. 

;i.  my  friends  —  Burke,  Fox,  and  the  Whigs  now  in  oppo- 
sition. 

Page  160,  18.  A  committee  which  was  appointed  in  1781  to 
inquire  into  East  Indian  affairs,  and  which  reported  in  1782. 
The  charges  made  by  it  are  not  to  be  confounded  with  the  Arti- 
cles of  Im|)eachment  presented  by  the  House.  See  below,  p.  IGl, 
1.  :^ 

I'm.!  162,  20-27.  A  striking  proof  of  the  dangers  at  that 
time  attending  free  sj^ech  is  found  in  the  extreme  pains  Erskine 
thinks  it  necessary  to  take  in  order  to  guard  what  he  says  from 
the  charge  of  interfering  with,  or  anticipating,  tlie  regular  process 
of  judicial  investigation  —  the  very  same  charge  under  which  his 
client  was  suffering. 

Pagk  163,  11.    Verres.    Consult  the  Clas.sical  Dictionary,  s.v. 

Pa(;k  166,  'M.  Gothic,  a  term  formerly  used  with  utmost 
looseness  of  signification,  to  designate  confusedly  anything  Teu- 
tonic, mediaeval,  or  barbaric.  Such  was  its  meaning  as  at  first 
applied  to  a  style  of  arch\|«cture.  In  no  other  sense  were  our 
ancestors  Gothic. 

Page  170,  6.  amenable  to  no  law,  with  reference  to  the 
privileges  of  members  of  Parliament,  and  particularly  to  their 
exemption  from  action  or  indictment  for  iiiiv  fncdoni  of  sin^ech 
they  may  use. 

Page  170,  28  ff.  The  keen  e«lg«-  wnnu  imks  miiU-r  ilu->.'  in- 
nocent-looking remarks  will  l)e  appreciated  when  we  recall  the 
notorious  fact  that  Pitt  carried  the  very  same  majority  with  him 


358  Notes, 

i<  :  -  mI  ili<-  iiii]M-:uliiii.iit  (|U-'-i  •  a-aiii-t.  and  llifii 

I'-r   1  -  betwi'L'U  liic  two  votes  suliiced 

lor  li  I  ;  but  till'  rank  and  tile  wovo  so 

v.iil  Aiilioiit    \\i>-    '.  in- 

t<'ii(l.-.t.  Ml'-,  '  s.  .  iii.-il  tlifir  niaiiMii\  !.•  m  |hth-i-l  iwim.  m  iJic 
woi.l  nt"  (•(.iiiiiiaiiil  -i\cn  on  tlic  vny  fvi-ning  the  vote  was  taktii. 

Ta*.!    171.    11*.     assumed  —  t-x-i-i-.l.     l.iou'^lit     into     r.Mjui- 
sit  ion. 

21.     the  saving  judgment — th.' ju<l_;in.Mit  which  toilM;ii>  lo 
j>nni>li  as  iTinif«>  wwrv  <*rroi>  of  tl 

Pa(.i    172.  >      extraordinary  <>\    upon 

"  mloiiiiat  ion  ■*  only,  ami  not  njM.n  ic^nhir  indift  nicnt  l>y  a  -rand 
jury,  as  rxj.lainrd  l.rl..\\. 

o(i.     the  law.  i.r..  tlic  roiniuon   law.  W(»rkini;  tlirough  its  ordi- 
naiy  in>t  runn-nt^. 

I'  vol    174    L'  I.     commentaries,  when'  we  shoiil«l  .say  '"//////'  ///>. 
Th.  :  lit tl<'  adroit iH'ss  in   th  .  >\\  which   f(.llows, 

tliat    III.'   .\i:..rn.-y-( ,  "    ■~.  after  all.  oio}    .li-rhar_;iiij,   ].cii'unc- 

tori!\    };is  otiicial  th.: 

180,    1.      'ihc  ]  ■'/  in  a  sent,  i.e.'  is 

a  ;..,ii..  I  x\hich  usctl  to  i..-  .1.1.1  iniii.-o  ,oiii.-i  ns  holly  ]»y  cohMilcr- 
ations  of  cupliony  and  rliytlnn.  The  claiin-^  of  clearness  and  of 
jirecision  are  now  more  generally  reco-ni/.etl.  and  we  arc  aj>t  to 
insi>t  iii.it  til.'  word  l>e  ]>laced  next  to  that  wlii<-h  it  ([ualiti<'s. 
The     ;  is    >harj>ly    I'l-.'iuht     (.ut     in    thi-    j>articii]ar   cas.'. 

Odd  a-  111.'  >.'ntence  now  sounds,  it  Would  he  dillicult.  unless  we 
rec.ot  I  lie  wliole.  to  tind  an(»ther  place  lor  »//«///  witliout  destroying 
either  >en.M'  or  rhvthni.  or  l»(»th. 


DANIEL    WEBSTEU. 


Daniel  Webster,  statesman  and  orator,  was  bom  in  Salis- 
bury, N.  II.,  Jan.  12,  1782.  Ills  father,  a  sturdy  frontiei-snian, 
soldier,  farmer,  ineiiil)er  of  the  legislature,  and  county  judge,  was, 
after  the  nuiniier  of  his  kind,  always  struggling  with  i^verty,  and 
handicapiK'd  with  a  sense  of  the  deficiencies  of  his  early  educa- 
tion. He  purposed  that  Daniel,  his  youngest  son,  a  delicate  latl 
and  little  fitted  for  the  heavy  tasks  of  a  farmer's  life,  should  not 
l)e  so  handicai>iHMl.  Through  struggles  and  self-denial  by  no 
means  rare  in  such  cases,  a  way  w;us  made  to  send  him  to  college. 
After  an  exceedingly  brief  and  fragmentary  preparation,  he  en- 
tered Dartmouth  College  in  1797,  and  was  graduated  in  1801,  at 
the  age  of  nineteen.  He  turned  at  once  to  the  study  of  law, 
sup|K)rting  himself  meanwhile,  and  assisting  his  elder  brother  in 
college,  by  copying,  teaching,  and  other  miscellaneous  labors. 
Admitted  to  the  bar  in  1805,  his  remarkable  abilities  soon  gained 
him  recognition,  and  the  field  of  political  life  oi^ned  before  him. 
In  181'i  he  took  his  seat  in  Congress.  From  this  time  on  his  life 
is  writ  so  large  on  the  pages  of  his  country's  history  as  to  need 
little  further  notice  here.  The  greatest  service  he  rendere*!  his 
country  wjis  doubtless  as  champion  of  the  national  idea,  and  the 
siXH'ch  Iwfore  us  is  probably  his  most  meniorable  utterance  uihmi 
that  subject.  Honors  and  fame  came  thick  uiK>n  him  —  all  save 
the  honor  he  had  come  to  covet  most,  the  Presidency.  Aftt-r 
thirty-nine  years  of  public  life  he  died  ()i(.  Jl.  1^."*J. 

SPEECH   IN   REPLY   TO   HAYNE. 

The  cncuinstances  which  called  forth  this  sjHiech  may  1h«  thus 
8ummari/x'd  :  For  a  long  time  l)efore  l.s:U)  there  had  been  a  grave 
divergence  of  conviction  among  American  statesmen  as  t 

350 


aOU  JNutca. 

real  nature  of  the  union  l>etween  the  various  States,  and  as  to  thr 
limitations  thereby  iniiK)sed  upon  the  powers  of  the  8eparat<' 
States,  as  well  as  the  limitations  exercised  by  them  uj^n  the 
IK>wers  of  the  general  government.  One  side  held  that  the  United 
States  was  one  nation;  that  the  general  government  wius  clKirt,nMl 
with  the  conduct  of  all  matters  which  concern  tli«  hiikmi  as  ;, 
whole;  that  laws  matle  by  the  representatives  of  all  in  tiic  gtMunil 
government  are  binding  upon  all  alike ;  and  that  such  laws  may 
be  jwacefully  set  aside  in  one  of  two  ways  only,  either  by  having 
them  declared  unconstitutional  by  the  Supreme  Court,  or  by  hav- 
ing them  rei»ealed  by  the  power  which  made  them.  The  other 
side  held  the  several  States  to  be  sovereign  i>owers,  very  much  as 
if  they  were  separate  nations,  united,  it  is  true,  for  certain  com- 
mon purposes,  and  delegating  certain  limited*  powers  to  a  common 
organization ;  but  reserving  each  to  itiielf  alone  the  decision  as  to 
whether  measures  enacted  by  the  general  government  should  l)e 
ojierative  within  its  territory.  This  was  the  doctrine  of  State- 
Rights;  and  its  application  in  nullifying  laws  passed  by  Congress 
was  at  this  time  nuich  talked  about,  and  was  soon  to  be  tried  by 
South  Carolina  with  this  very  Robert  Y.  Ilayne  as  Governor. 
These  views  were  not  confined  to  separate  sections  of  country ; 
but  the  National  idea  found  its  strongest  support  in  New  Eng- 
land, while  the  State-Rights  idea  —  with  its  corollary,  nullification 
—  was  warmly  espoused  in  the  South. 

At  the  end  of  December,  1829,  Mr.  Foote  of  Connecticut  intro- 
duced into  the  Senate  the  innocent  resolution,  printed  on  page 
185  of  this  volume,  calling  for  an  inquiry  into  the  sales  and  sur- 
veys of  the  }Tublic  lands.  JN^othing  8i>ecial  was  elicited  by  the 
fitful  discussion  which  ensued  until,  on  January*19,  Mr.  Robert 
Y.  Hayne  of  South  Carolina  made  a  speech,  "  accusing  the  New 
England  States  of  a  selfish  design  to  retard  the  growth  of  the 
Western  States  —  a  design  originating  the  tariff;  "  and  appealing 
to  a  natural  sympathy,  which,  as  he  affirmed,  existed  lietween  the 
Western  and  the  Southern  States,  and  which  should  unite  thein 
against  the  policy  and  the  assumption  of  New  England.  Engaged 
as  Mr.  Webster  was  at  this  time  in  the  Supreme  Court,  he  had 
not  followed  the  discussion,  and  had  no  thought  of  taking  part 


Webster:   In  Reply  to  Ilayne.  J501 


ill  it  at  iill  until  by  chance  he  heard  this  kimmmIi  ot  Mi.  ll.iyn.-. 
Its  tone  and  spirit  were  so  unusual  that  he  felt  it  nmst  be  an- 
8Nvere<l.  He  rose  to  speak  as  soon  as  Mr.  Ilayne  sat  down,  but 
an  mljournnient  of  the  Senate  i)ost]K)ned  his  reply.  Next  day  he 
delivennl  his  first  sixioch  in  this  debate,  defending  New  England 
against  the  charges  brought  against  lier,  and  upholding  the  doc- 
trine of  a  national  union  and  a  national  ]>olicy,  as  opi)os(nl  to  the 
divisive  tendencies  and  sectional  jealousies  to  which  api)eal  hail 
been  made.  The  discussion  took  on  at  once  a  range  and  an  iin- 
{K)rtance  far  transcending  the  scoik;  of  the  simple  resolution 
which  started  it.  The  champions  of  State-Rights  and  Nullificar 
tion,  together  with  those  who  insisted  that  slavery  should  be 
provided  for  in  the  settlement  of  new  territories,  rallied  to  the 
charge.  "  There  seemed  to  be,"  said  an  observer,  "a  preconcerted 
action  on  the  part  of  Southern  meml>er8  to  break  down  the 
Northern  men,  aiul  to  destroy  their  influence  by  a  prt;meditated 
assault."  John  C.  Calhoun,  the  foremost  of  them  all,  wjus  presid- 
ing officer  of  the  Senate,  and  could  take  no  part  in  the  debate; 
but  his  place  in  the  lists  was  made  good  by  Thomas  II.  Benton 
and  Robert  Y.  Ilayne.  The  speech  of  the  latter,  in  particular,  by 
its  eloquence  and  acuteness,  as  well  as  by  the  relentlessness  of  its 
personal  attack,  produced  a  profound  impression.  By  many  per- 
sons it  was  felt  to  be  unauswerable.  At  its  close  the  Senate 
adjourned. 

This  second  speech  of  Mr.  Hayne  wjts  the  one  i«*  wliiih  Mi. 
Webster  was  next  morning  to  reply.  The  previous  strokes  in 
this  battle-royal  ha<l  roused  public  interest  to  the  highest  pitch. 
For  two  or  three  days  strangers  liatl  been  pouring  into  W.-whing- 
ton  to  witness  the  outcome.  When  the  Senate  met,  all  the  usual 
ri'strictions  had  proved  of  no  avail  against  the  mighty  throng  that 
gathered  there.  "Its  chamber — galleries,  floor,  and  even  lobbies 
—  wjus  filled  to  its  utmost  capacity.  The  very  stairways  were  dark 
with  men  who  clung  to  one  another  like  l)ee8  in  a  swarm."  The 
ordinary  ceremonial  of  oi^ening  the  session  of  the  S<Miate  was 
impatiently  set  aside.  In  the  presence  of  this  vast  and  anxious 
audience,  without  the  least  sign  of  tremor  or  perturbation,  Mr. 
Webster  rose  aud  began  his  secoud  speech  upon  the  resolution  of 
Mr.  Foote. 


Notes, 


TEXTUAL  NOTES. 


Page  186, 15.  elsewhere  —  in  the  Supreme  Court,  where  Mr. 
Webster  had  a  very  imix)rtant  Kuit  pending. 

Pack  188,  9.  The  friend  was  the  faniouH  Thomas  II.  llenton, 
who  had  twice  taken  an  iininirtant  part  in  the  debate.  Ili.s  first 
«IM.H»ch  —  referretl  l«)  in  the  next  paragraph  —  Mr.  Webster  did 
not  hear. 

11)  fF.  The  notes  used  by  Mr.  Webster  on  these  two  occasions 
have  been  preserved.  They  are  of  the  briefest  possible  nature, 
covering  in  the  one  cafie  only  three,  an<l  in  the  other  case  only 
five  loosely  written  letter-sheets.  But  the  great  questions  involved 
had  Innm  thought  out  by  him  many  niontlis  before,  as  he  himself 
has  told  us. 

Pack  192,  8.  the  Missouri  question,  referring  to  the  bitter 
strife  which  arose  over  the  a^iniission  of  Missouri  as  a  ^lavr-state. 
Cf. any  good  History  of  the  United  States  8.v.  The  Mi  m- 

promise.  The  same  question  in  it«  later  aspects  is  di  u-  u  l»y 
Mr.  Calhoun  in  his  sjieech  printed  in  this  volume. 

Pagk  194,  9.  In  determining  the  number  of  Representatives 
in  Congress  to  which  any  State  was  entitled,  the  number  of  free 
persons  in  it  was  incre-ased  by  three-fifths  of  the  whole  number  of 
slaves  it  contained.  Thus,  in  proportion  to  the  numlier  of  voters, 
the  slave-states  ha«l  a  much  larger  representation  than  the  free- 
states.     Cf.  the  Constitution,  Article  I.,  section  2. 

Pa<:k  202,  15,  16.  Because  the  terms  "neutral"  and  "  ImjIH- 
gerent "  are  applicable  only  to  a  state  of  war,  and  lose  all  their 
significance  in  jieace. 

Paue  204,  12.  TeufTo  duce  —  "  with  Teucer  as  my  leader  "  — 
from  a  famous  line  in  Horace.  The  "  Teucer  "  thus  referred  to 
was  none  other  than  Calhoun  himself,  the  "  Mr.  President "  whom 
he  here  addresses,  now  the  leader  of  the  extreme  Southern  wing, 
presumably  even  in  its  opposition  to  the  national  policy  of  inter- 
nal improvements  which  Mr.  AVebster  learned  from  him  in  1816. 
Few  things  in  the  speech  are  more  adroit  than  the  manner  in 
which  ^Ir.  Webster  here  parries  and  returns  with  a  home-thrust 
the  double  charge  of  jxjrsonal  inconsistency  and  of  sectional  greed 


Webster:   In  Reply  to  Hui/ne.  863 

auil  srlJi.shiiivvs.  lly  tlu;  ploiusantry  of  this  sally  ui)on  Mr.  Calhoun 
he  withdraws  the  attention  of  the  audience  from  his  immediate 
antagonist,  and  fixes  it  uix)n  the  real  leiwler  and  champion  of 
these  extreme  views.  With  unfailing  good  humor  he  piles  up 
opinions  and  votes  of  "  leading  and  distinguished  gentlemen  from 
South  Carolina"  in  maintenance  of  the  very  \K)Vicy  his  opiionent 
has  condemned.  lie  recalls  how  gladly  he  followed  the  star  of 
South  Carolina  —  until  it  changed  its  position.  The  Vice-l*resi- 
dent  at  last  winces.  He  interrupts  the  si>eech  with  a  question 
(p.  209)  which  may  be  taken  either  as  an  indignant  denial  of  any 
change  in  his  views,  or  as  a  "  bluff."  Nothing  could  have  better 
served  Mr.  Webster's  purjwse.  Having  "drawn"  Mr.  Calhoun, 
he  graciously  accepts  his  remark  in  the  former  sense,  and  then 
recalls  that  there  are  other  gentlemen,  too,  from  South  Carolina 
who  are  not  imphicably  opposed  to  internal  improvements  at  the 
general  cost  —  if  only  they  are  to  be  carried  out  in  South 
Carolina. 

Pagk  205,  21.  causa  cauaans  —  the  caiudnr/  cause,  —  the  school- 
men's phrase  to  distinguish  the  essential  or  efficient  cause  from 
various  co-oiwrating  or  conditioning  caiLses. 

Pagk  207,  4.  et  noscilur  a  sociis  —  "  and  he  is  [was]  recognized 
by  his  companions."  But  Mr.  Webster  seems  to  give  it  a  pun- 
ning turn  not  borne  out  by  the  T.nfin  —  -anti  ho  w.-vs  known  by 
the  company  he  kept." 

Page  207,  13.  For  the  puny  (icsignanons  ot  tho^r  .l;i\^.  >.  .> 
note  to  page  298. 

Pagk  212,  21.  had  proved  a  legal  settlement  in  South 
Carolina — was  found  to  Ik;  regularly  domiciled  there. 

Page  218»  11.  The  Hartford  Couvention  of  1814,  a  conven- 
tion of  New  England  delegates  opi>osed  to  the  policy  of  the 
government,  and  especially  to  the  war  with  England.  It  sat 
with  closed  doors,  and  was  at  the  time  strongly  susix'cted  of 
treasonable  designs.  No  proof,  however,  of  this  charge  has  ever 
Injcn  produced,  and  it  is  now  generally  discredited.  Cf  '  "^ 
1 1  istory. 

Pack  220,  12 -If).  The  peculiar  turn  of  expression  here  is  » 
reminiscence  of  the  closing  lines  of  Dryden's  Alexander**  Feast. 


364  Notes. 

The  student  who  has  his  English  classics  in  mind  cannot  fail  to 
notice  the  fre<iuent  occurrence  of  such  echoes  in  this  speech,  and 
the  striking  originality  of  their  application. 

Page  221,  29.  With  this  eloquent  passage  Mr.  Webster  leaves 
the  personal  and  sectional  matters  that  had  been  forced  upon  him, 
for  what  was  much  more  congenial  to  his  nature  —  the  discussion 
of  principles.  All  through  this  defence,  in  fact,  has  l)een  apparent 
his  strong  feeling  that  personalities  have  no  claim  whatever  upon 
public  attention,  save  as  they  stand  for  ideas  and  principles.  Mr. 
Webster's  manly  dignity  and  his  unruffled  temixjr  in  rej)elling  a 
caustic  attack  have  made  this  section  a  classic  of  its  kind.  It 
may  be  profitably  compared  with  Burke's  defence  of  himself  in  his 
Speech  at  Bristol. 

Pagk  223,  29.  The  citation  is  from  the  famous  resolutions  of 
the  Virginia  Legislature,  passed  I)eceml>er,  1798,  to  express  its 
opposition  to  the  Alien  and  Sedition  Laws  recently  enacted  by 
Congress.     The  language  was  understood  to  be  Mr.  Madison's. 

Page  227,  5,  6.  One  finds  here,  and  farther  on  (p.  239),  the 
first  drafts  of  Lincoln's  immortal  phrase  —  "  government  of  the 
people,  by  the  people,  and  for  the  people."     See  p.  312. 

Page  234,  21.  The  not  does  not  appear  in  any  edition  con- 
sulted, but  seems  imperatively  demanded  by  the  sense.  Its 
omission  was  doubtless  due  to  a  slip  of  the  printer  and  the  proof- 
reader. 

Page  246,  7.  John  Fries  was  a  turbulent  fellow  who,  in  1799, 
headed  some  Pennsylvanians  in  riotous  resistance  to  the  laws  of 
the  United  States  and  in  the  rescue  of  prisoners.  He  was  twice 
tried  for  treason,  twice  convicted  and  sentenced  to  be  hanged, 
but  was  finally  pardoned  by  the  President 


"  At  the  conclusion  of  Mr.  Webster's  argument,  (reneral  Hayne 
rose  to  reply.  Although  one  of  his  friends  proposed  an  adjourn- 
ment, he  declined  to  avail  himself  of  it,  and  addressed  the  Senate 
for  a  short  time  on  the  constitutional  question.  Mr.  Webster 
then  rose  again,  rest^t^d  both  sides  of  the  controversy  with  great 
force,  giving  General  Ilayne  the  benefit  of  that  clear  setting  forth 


Webster:    In  Reply  to  Hayne.  865 

of  the  position  of  an  adversary,  which  none  could  do  better  tliun 
Mr.  Webster,  and  which  none  could  doubt  was  the  strongest 
method  of  stating  it ;  and  then  following  it,  step  by  step,  with  the 
appropriate  answer.  This  was  the  reduction  of  the  whole  con- 
troversy to  the  severest  forms  of  logic."  —  Life  of  Daniel  WelmUr, 
by  Gkokge  T.  Cuutis,  vol.  i.  p.  359. 

Two  years  passed,  and  again  Mr.  Webster  faced  this  same  ques- 
tion in  the  Senate,  but  this  time  with  an  antagonist  more  formid- 
able than  Mr.  Ilayne.  Mr.  Calhoun's  speech  on  that  occa.sion 
hius  l>een  considered  as  perhaps  the  al)lest  effort  of  his  life.  It 
became  the  scripture  from  which  almost  a  whole  generation  of  the 
young  men  of  the  South  learned  those  lessons  which  afterward 
carried  them  into  the  War  of  Secession.  Mr.  Webster's  rei)ly 
was  this  time  more  closely  masoned,  more  compact  and  powerful 
as  an  intellectual  effort  than  the  earlier  speech,  though  less  inter- 
esting, it  may  l>e,  to  the  general  reader.  But  the  great  debate  of 
1830  seems  to  liave  exhausted  the  arguments  upon  this  subject. 
\Miatever  was  said  later  upon  either  side  seemed  to  be  but  re- 
statement or  re-arrangement  of  what  was  there  laid  down.  One 
thing  only  remained,  and  that  was  to  bring  the  opposing  views  to 
the  arbitrament  of  actual  conflict.  That  crisis  seemed  actually  to 
have  come,  even  while  tliis  second  debate  was  going  on.  South 
Carolina,  with  Mr.  Ilayne  as  Governor,  undertook  to  put  her 
views  in  practice,  and  armed  herself  to  stop  the  collection  of 
United  States  duties  in  her  jwrts.  President  Jackson  sternly 
prepared  to  enforce  the  laws  with  all  the  powers  the  goverment 
could  wield.  But  the  storm  that  threatened  did  not  break  then 
after  all.  The  matter  was  compromised,  and  South  Carolina  took 
back  her  Act  of  Nullification.  The  final  issue  came  a  generation 
later,  and  on  those  battle-fields  where  brave  men  freely  gave  their 
lives  "  that  government  of  the  people,  by  the  people,  and  for  the 
people  should  not  perish  from  the  earth." 


LORD   MACAULAY. 


Thomas  Babington  Macaulay  was  bom  Oct.  25,  1800,  the 
eldest  8UI1  of  Zachary  Macaulay,  a  prominent  reformer  and  aboli- 
tionist, a  follower  and  friend  of  Willierforce.  His  boyhood  was 
passed  at  his  father's  home  in  I^ndon,  and  afterwards  at  a  private 
school,  until  at  eighteen  years  of  age  he  entered  Cambridge.  Here 
he  took  his  degree  in  182*^,  and  was  elected  Fellow  two  years  later. 
While  yet  a  mere  child  he  luul  become  interested  in  the  great 
public  questions  discussed  at  his  father's  table.  At  the  university 
he  won  academic  honors  for  comi>osition,  oratory,  and  political 
debate.  Thus  were  already  outlined  the  two  fields  of  his  future 
achievement  His  literary  career  opened  first  with  the  publica- 
tion in  1825  of  his  famous  essay  on  Milton,  the  first  of  a  long 
and  brilliant  series  of  papers  which  ended  only  with  his  death. 
In  1842  appeared  his  L<iy$  of  Ancient  Romey  inspired  in  part  by  a 
visit  to  Italy.  Of  his  History  of  England  two  volumes  were  pub- 
lished in  1848,  two  in  1855,  and  one  after  his  death. 

I  lis  i>olitical  career  l)egan  with  his  entrance  into  Parliament  in 
18*50.  It  continued  unbroken  for  seventeen  years,  and  was  even 
resumed  for  a  time  at  a  later  period.  His  voice  was  heard  with 
no  uncertain  sound  on  all  the  great  questions  of  that  stirring 
time,  but  he  is  specially  rememl>ered  for  the  ardor  with  which  he 
threw  hiuLself  into  the  great  Reform  Movement  of  1832.  Twice 
he  held  cabinet  offices  in  Whig  Ministries,  and  once  he  was  sent 
to  India  as  legal  adviser  to  the  Supreme  Council  and  president 
of  an  important  Commission.  In  1857  he  was  made  Baron 
Macaulay  of  Rothley  —  "  the  first  literary  man  to  receive  such  a 
distinction." 

Into  each  of  these  careers  lie  put  energy  and  talent  enough  to 
have  made  Mm  famous  without  aid  from  the  other.     Between 

3GG 


M'i'-.inh,,/  •   On  tin    /:.  r.,r,n    Ji:ji.  .wr, 

tlu'rn  l)nth  his  iiic  was  crowiKMi  witiiciKtri  ana  cxciK'uxmii  i>«'V(mu1 
the  lot  of  most  famous  men,  ami  beyond  the  jxjwers  of  his  own 
abounding  vitality  to  sustain.  A  weakness  of  the  heart  ended  in 
his  death  on  December  28,  1859. 


SPEECH   ON   THE   REFORM   BILL. 

The  House  of  Commons  was  formally  established  in  England 
when  Edward  I.  in  1295  summoned  to  his  Great  Council  two  bur- 
gesses to  be  elected  "  from  every  city,  borough,  and  leading  town  " 
of  his  realm,  and  two  knights  from  every  shire.  A  body  so  con- 
stituted must  have  been  fairly  representative  of  the  nation. 
There  was,  however,  no  definite  settlement  of  the  details  of 
representation  ;  it  still  remained  with  the  Crown  to  determine 
what  boroughs  should  Ihj  invited  to  participate.  In  the  sixteenth 
century  the  Tudor  sovereigns  had  learned  the  art  of  managing 
their  Commons  by  managing  the  election  of  members.  Elections, 
of  course,  could  most  easily  be  controlled  in  small  and  unimpor- 
tant places ;  hence  such  from  time  to  time  were  added  to  the 
list  Thus  began  one  form  of  the  "  rotten  borough."  In  the 
seventeenth  century  representation  in  Parliament  crystallized  per- 
manently almost  in  the  form  in  which  the  Tudors  left  it.  As 
time  went  on,  places  once  imi^rtant  and  ix)pulou8  often  dwindled 
or  stood  still,  while  the  mighty  towns  of  modern  England  were 
growing  up  about  them,  and  wholly  without  representation. 
These  Imroughs  thus  accidentally  decayed  were  quite  as  reatly 
means  for  corrupt  uses  —  were  quite  as  "  rotten  "  —  as  were  those 
of  the  other  sort.  By  this  time  Parliament  had  ceased  to  l>e  in 
any  true  sense  the  representative  of  the  nation.  The  pressure  of 
the  "  new  wine  in  old  bottles  "  was  alrt^ady  alarming  in  the  eigh- 
teenth century,  when  it  attracted  the  attention  of  such  men  as 
Cliatham  and  Burke.  But  consideration  of  it  was  imix)ssible 
amid  the  tumults  of  the  French  Revolution  and  of  the  XajHileonic 
wars.  It  had  to  wait  till  1820,  when  I^>ril  John  Russell  proposed 
his  bill  for  Parliamentary  Reform.  The  demand  was  nothing 
less  tlian  that  a  corrupt  Parliament,  intrenched  within  these  "  rot- 


j»n'ssiir 

n\\vr> 

1' 1(1  111 

<l<Mii;i!M 

1    l;ii' 

try.  \\li( 

,  1m-I,| 

Whiu. 

lllni.-l 

368  Notes. 

t'Ml    linl-(,i,  ,       ,.    ill,--..'    ili.^t  rUIIli'lltS 

of  coniijilinii,      1  lii>.  .  udiiitl  not  do  without  ext4.Tnal 

Tlif    liill    \'.  1.-    Lidiiiitilv  r«'U'cted,  as  were 

lit   I'lw.irl  ;o  the  popular 

A  >n  luriiii-laM''  tiial  \\  ■  Ilm^i^toii  and  ili.'  Tory  Miiiis- 
1  out  >titlly  auMiii>t  it,  Nwn*  fdivcd  to  n'-ign,  Nvhilc  t he 
I  Earl  Grey  (am.  i;ito  power,  pledged  to  the  reform. 
On  ill.-  1-t  ..1'  March.  l-Sol,  llu-ir  >  -  ■-  ^vas  laid  before  Parlia- 
iiKiit    l.y  Loid  Johii  lliissell,  who,  loi  a  ( 'al>inet  Minister, 

was  clio-.-ii  tor  this  iiiiiM.rt:,  •  ot"  Ids  ability  and 

of  Ili-  l.'ii'  :im1   iH,ii(.r;il.! ...  :..;:  ^ -.     It  wfvs  |m>]")osed 

to   1  Iwroughs,  and  to  di>tri  lilt  r  their 

one  huiiiinil  and  lurty-thruc  seats  among  tli"  '^rrat  cities  and  the 
towns  hitherto  not  reprcsrntod.  Thobattl*'  tin:-  j.iiiod  continued 
wiili  l>ut  littlf  iiit<rnii''  aged 

cVfiy  man  of  al>ilily  on  '  ..  w:  -;m'-.  w  nut-  l  H'  .■.  n^  '■•  nai  ion  \N;iited 
for  tlh'  i-xiif  with  «'V('r-L:ro\N  iiiL,^  excitement.  Tii''  l»ill  came  to  its 
second  n-adini^  with  a  majority  of  one  vote.  In  the  discussions 
whirh  followed,  the  ^Miui.stry  was  defeated  on  a  j-oint  of  detail, 
and  I'Vomi'tly  dissolved  Parliament  and  appeaU-d  to  th.-  |m<,|,1,-  in 
a  nc  w  rlt'ction.  Intrenched  as  corruption  was  in  the  existing 
order  of  thin<;s,  tlie  reformers  were  nevertheless  returned  in  over- 
wht'lmiiiL,'  majority.  At  the  assembling  of  tli<*  nt-w  Parlia!i,.iit  in 
June.  Lord  John  Russell  introduced  his  I'ill  a-ain,  in  iln'  loiui 
known  as  tlie  Second  Reform  Bill.  All  that  it>  oi^poiM-nt.-  in  the 
IIou.se  could  now  do  was  to  delay  its  jro-it  ss.  It  finally  passed 
the  romnioiis  by  a  majority  of  over  a  hundred  votes,  but  was 
rcj.  ( I.  (I  hy  the  Lords.  Parliament  -was  then  prorogued.  After 
the  recess  tlu'  hill  wa.s  introduced  for  the  tliird  time,  and  at  the 
end  of  .March  had  passed  the  House  by  a  niajcjrity  more  decisive 
than  ever.  Popular  excitement  was  now  at  fever  heat,  and  r<  i'(  at- 
rdly  broke  out  into  rioting.  The  Lords  seemed  as  obstinately 
}>ent  on  defeating-  the  measure  as  ever  before;  but  the  gravity  of 
tlu'  crisis,  and  the  knowledge  that  the  king's  consent  liad  been 
oiven  to  the  creation  of  enonixh  new  peers  to  overcome  theii-  iiia- 
joritv.  at  last  sobered  the-ni.  W.'llin-ton  and  his  followers  decidetl 
to  withdraw  frc»ni  the  linal  deliberations  and  vutin-.  and  to  allow 


Macaulay:   On  the  Reform  Bill,  869 

the  bill  to  pass  in  their  absence,  rather  than  face  an  issue  so  haz- 
ardous to  their  order.     The  bill  became  law  on  June  7,  1832. 

During  this  long  debate  Macaulay  spoke  many  times.  Of  the 
live  speeches  on  the  Reform  Bill,  which  he  himself  corrected  for 
the  press,  we  have  chosen  the  first  as  the  most  comprehensive  and 
the  best  suited  for  our  purpose.  In  it  his  characteristic  brilliancy 
of  expression  and  of  argument  are  abundantly  exemplified.  Those 
who  are  interested  in  looking  further  into  the  ix)ints  of  his  style 
will  find  the  matter  fully  treated  iu  Miuto's  Manual  of  English 
Prose  Literature^  pp.  76-130. 

TEXTUAL  NOTES. 

Page  252,  20.  Paymaster  of  the  Forcea  —  Lord  John  Rus- 
sell, mentioned  in  the  Introductory  Note  above.  lie  was  after- 
wards Earl  Russell,  and  a  conspicuous  figure  in  Euro^^ean  politics 
as  late  as  the  close  of  the  Crimean  War.  For  the  "courtesy-title" 
borne  by  liim  at  this  time,  see  note  to  page  6,  1.  9-14. 

It  is  not  thought  necessary  to  burden  the  student  with  the 
names  of  all  the  persons  referred  to  in  this  speech.  Many  of 
them  are  unknown  to  general  fame.  The  exceptions  will  be 
noted  as  they  occur. 

Pack  253,  28.  those  cheers  —  the  cries  of  "Hear,  hear," 
with  which  the  Commons  punctuate,  or  rather  annotate,  the 
utterances  -of  their  si^eakers.  An  astonishing  variety  of  meaning 
can  he  put  into  them.  Macaulay  understands  the  contemptuous 
irony  of  these  cheers  from  the  Opposition.  So,  too,  on  the  next 
page,  I.  12. 

Page  258,  33,  34.  Benevolences  and  Shipmoney  were  ex- 
actions of  money  ma<le  by  the  earlier  English  kings  without 
authorization  of  Parliament,  and  consequently  illegal. 

Paok  259,  24.  liverymen  —  meml>er8  of  the  great  guilds  of 
London,  entitled  to  wear  their  livery,  and  to  vote  as  burgesses. 

Page  265,  5-7.  The  list  brought  forward  in  this  debate  con- 
taine<l  such  names  as  North,  Burke,  l*itt.  Fox,  Grenville,  Welling- 
ton, Brougham,  and  Grey.  Macaulay  himself  might  have  l>een 
added  —  member  for  Calue,  "cue  of  the  most  degraded  of  the 


o7U  JSotCH. 

rotten  borough^/*  as  one  of  the  speakers  took  pains  to  remind 
him. 

Page  267,  5.  The  famous  agitator  and  "  uncrowned  king  of 
Ireland,"  Daniel  O'Connell.  Note  the  striking  reference  to  him 
again,  p.  209,  1.  24-26.  The  circumstances  here  concerned  are 
these  :  The  franchise  in  Ireland  had  been  limited  to  persons  who 
owned  freehold  pro]M»rty  of  forty  shillings*  yearly  value  or  rental. 
On  the  l)a.sis  of  this  representation,  in  1828  O'Connell  was  elected 
to  Parliament  as  member  for  Clare,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  he 
was  a  Catholic,  and  that  Catholics  were  ineligible  to  sit  in  Parlia- 
ment. Ireland  was  aflame  with  enthusiasm  over  this  victory. 
The  English  Minlstr}'  under  Wellington,  fearing  lest  civil  war 
should  break  out,  consented  in  1829  to  measures  of  relief  which 
allowed  Catholics  to  sit  in  Parliament,  but  at  the  same  time 
raised  the  proi>erty  qualification  of  voters.  O'Connell  now  came 
forward  to  claim  his  seat ;  but  the  Commons  insisted  that,  having 
been  elected  on  the  old  basis  of  representation,  he  must  take  the 
oaths  formerly  required,  and  renounce  Catholicism,  which  he 
refused  to  do.  The  seat  was  then  declared  vacant,  and  a  new 
election  was  ordered.  O'Connell  was  triumphantly  returned,  and 
took  his  seat  in  1830.  The  supix>sed  "crime"  of  the  electors  of 
Clare  was  their  defiance  of  the  established  order  in  electing  a 
representative  who  could  not  legally  sit  in  Parliament.  The  sup- 
posed "punishment"  was  the  disfranchising  of  the  poorer  electors, 
Protestant  as  well  as  Catholic. 

Pack  268,  2.  Sir  Rolwrt  Peel,  member  of  the  last  Tory  cab- 
inet, and  a  distinguished  statesman,  in  spite  of  the  humiliating 
position  in  which  he  here  appears. 

The  Test  and  Corporation  Acts  mentioned  below  were  parts 
of  the  machinery  for  disqualifying  Catholics  for  positions  of 
public  trust. 

Page  269,  24.  The  Rent  was  O'Connell's  campaign  fund, 
raised  by  the  Catholic  Association  through  voluntary  contribu- 
tions from  all  classes  in  Ireland.  It  amounted  at  times  to  82,500 
per  month. 

28.     that  .  .  .  cruel  test  of  military  fidelity  —  in  the  case  of 


Macaulay:   On  the  Reform  Bill,  JlTl 

soldiers  ordered  to  charge  upon  mobs  of  their  couiitrvinni.  wiili 
whose  cause  they  could  not  but  sympathize. 

V\r,v.  270,  5-9.  The  reference  is  to  the  mtMiiorable  ivevolution 
of  .Inly,  aiul  the  downfall  and  exile  from  France  of  the  last  of 
hor  liourbon  kings. 

22.  property  divided  against  itself.  The  newer  wealth  of 
England  —  her  iiianufactures  and  trade  —  oKstinately  opposed  in 
its  claims  for  representation  by  the  older  wealth  of  landed  estates 
in  the  hands  of  the  old  aristocracy. 


JOHN   C.  CALHOUN. 


John  C.  Calhoun  was  of  Irwh  Presbyterian  descent,  bom  in 
the  Abbeville  District,  South  Carolina,  March  18, 1782.  His  father 
died  while  he  was  yet  young.  His  iHjyhooti  and  youth  were  spent 
with  his  mother  on  the  plantation,  and  without  any  regular  school- 
ing until  he  was  eighteen  years  old.  It  is  a  striking  proof  of  the 
intensity  and  power  of  his  mind,  that  after  only  two  years  of  study 
under  private  instruction  he  was  able  to  enter  the  Junior  class  in 
Yale  College.  Two  years  later  he  was  graduated  with  honors. 
Three  years  more  he  devoted  to  the  study  of  law.  Not  long  after 
this  he  was  elected  to  the  legislature  of  his  State,  and  in  1811  he 
•was  sent  to  Congress,  taking  at  once  a  prominent  j>lace  as  a  sup- 
porter of  the  measures  which  brought  on  the  war  with  England. 
He  was  of  the  same  age  as  Daniel  Webster,  and  but  little  younger 
than  Henry  Clay  —  men  with  whom  he  was  so  incessantly  brought 
in  contact  in  public  life,  that,  in  spite  of  the  fact  of  their  almost 
constant  antagonism,  the  three  are  often  spoken  of  as  "  the  great 
triumvirate  "  of  American  statesmen.  Mr.  Calhoun  had  the  qual- 
ities of  a  born  leader  of  men  —  high  intellectual  force,  albeit 
somewhat  narrow,  unflinching  determination,  fiery  earnestness, 
and  splendid  oratorical  powers.  During  the  early  part  of  his 
career  he  was  broadly  and  generously  national  in  the  policies  he 
supported,  as  is  seen  in  Mr.  Webster's  sketch  (pp.  204-207  of  this 
volume).  He  filled  successively  many  high  positions,  becoming 
Vice-President  under  John  Quincy  Adams,  and  again  under  Jack- 
son in  1829.  About  this  time  his  attitude  seemed  to  change.  His 
view  was  more  and  more  concentrated  upon  the  institutions  and 
interests  of  the  South.  Henceforward  he  stood  as  the  champion 
of  State-Rights,  and  of  whatever  that  doctrine  finally  involved  — 
nullification  and  the  extension  of  the  slave-holding  power.     As 

372 


Calhoun:    On  the  Slavery  Question,  87»5 

sucli  he  was  frcciuontly  opposed  to  Mr.  Wt;l»sUr  ;nui  Mr.  Clay 
(see  concluding  note  to  Mr.  Webster's  speech,  p.  365).  As  time 
went  on,  and  troul)les  gathered  about  the  nation,  Mr.  Calhoun  set 
himself  with  unflinching  determination  against  all  conjpromise, 
and  iBcd  his  utmost  endeavor  to  make  the  whole  South  a  unit 
for  what  he  believed  to  be  its  right  and  its  duty.  lie  did  not 
live  to  see  the  direful  harvest  which  sprang  up  from  the  dragon's 
teeth  lie  had  sown.     He  died  March  31,  1850. 


SPEECH   ON   THE   SLAVERY   QUESTIOX. 

At  the  conclusion  of  the  Mexican  War  the  country  >\.i.>  innMsn 
into  a  ferment  over  the  question  whether  slavery  should  be 
a<lnutted  into  the  newly  acquired  territory,  which  under  Mexican 
rule  hatl  been  free.  Southern  men  felt  that  their  social  and 
economic  system  would  not  be  secure,  even  in  its  own  home, 
unless  it  could  maintain  its  equality  of  power  in  the  general  gov- 
ernment, and  particularly  in  the  Senate.  To  accomplish  this,  a 
new  slave  State  must  be  organized  to  match  every  new  free  State* 
admitted  into  the  Union.  Now,  the  ordinance  of  1787  and  the 
Missouri  Compromise  ha<l  left  very  little  territory  out  of  which 
slave  States  could  in  future  be  formed.  The  Mexican  War,  there- 
fore, had  been  supported  by  the  South,  mainly  with  a  view  to 
provide  such  territory.  But  l)efore  the  war  was  over  this  design 
came  very  near  l)eing  thwarted  by  the  Wilmot  Proviso  (for  which 
see  l>elow,  note  to  page  293) ;  and  though  the  proviso  failed  at 
that  time,  there  was  every  indication  that  it  would  l>e  revive*! 
later,  and  that  it  might  eventually  succeed.  At  this  juncture  the 
inliabitants  of  California,  without  waiting  for  an  «<  enabling  act," 
met  in  convention,  drafted  for  themselves  a  State  Constitution 
prohibiting  slaverj',  ratified  it  by  an  overwhelming  popular  vote, 
and  applied  to  Congress  to  be  received  into  tlie  Union.  It  seemed 
that  the  territorial  acquisition  which  the  slave-holding  interest 
had  counted  on  so  confidently  as*  \i»  own  was  alreatly  slipping 
out  of  its  grasp.  The  South  was  greatly  roused.  Its  more  fiery 
spirits  denounced  in  unmeasured  terms  this  violation  of  what 


374  NotcB, 

they  thought  their  righta,  and  threatened  more  fiercely  than  ever 
to  bn'ak  up  the  Union.  More  thoughtful  men  regarded  the  crisia 
with  profound  distress  and  alann.  Among  these,  Henry  Clay, 
then  seventy-three  years  old,  and  retired  from  public  life,  felt 
cuIUmI  u|X)n  to  come  forward  once  more  to  avert,  if  possible,  the 
inqM^nding  ruin.  His  scheme  for  restoring  harmony  was  pre- 
sented to  the  Senate,  Jan.  20,  1850,  in  a  series  of  resolutions,  and 
was  supjwrted  by  him  in  a  great  siteech  on  Feb.  5  and  6.  The 
debate  which  followed  brought  out,  we  are  told,  every  man  of 
note  in  the  Senate,  not  merely  its  great  leaders  of  the  pa.st, — 
Webster,  Calhoun,  and  Clay,  —  whose  race  was  almost  run,  l)ut 
those  who  were  to  shape  the  future  of  the  country  —  Seward, 
Chase,  and  Jefferson  Davis. 

The  speech  we  have  chosen  from  this  great  debate  is  specially 
memorable  as  Ix'ing  the  last  great  utterance  of  Mr.  Calhoun  on 
the  subject  to  which  he  had  given  the  strength  and  force  of  his 
life.  Of  the  purity  of  his  purpose  and  of  his  profound  sincerity 
there  could  Iw  no  queMion.  I  lis  int4»lh'ct  was  as  bright  and  keen 
as  ever,  though  the  hand  of  death  was  visibly  upon  him.  The 
*  speech,  which  he  ha^l  carefully  prei>ared,  he  was  unable  to  deliver; 
it  was  rea<l  for  him  by  a  friend  while  he  sat  by.  "  Every  senator 
listened  with  profound  attention  and  unfeigned  emotion ;  the 
gallerieii  were  hushed  into  the  deepest  silence  by  the  extraordi- 
nary scene,  which  ha<l  something  of  the  impressive  solemnity  of  a 
funereal  ceremony."  But  apart  from  the  interest  arising  out  of 
the  occasion,  the  six^ech  has  a  profounder  interest  of  its  own,  as 
lieing  one  of  the  frankest,  clearest,  and  calmest  statements  ever 
made  of  the  fundamentAl  question  at  issue,  as  viewed  from  the 
S<iuthern  side,  —  a  statement  in  which  all  subsidiary  matters  are 
brushed  a.side,  and  the  central  and  naked  issue  Ls  confronted  with 
an  unerring  aim  and  an  unflinching  logic  which  is  Calhoun's  own. 

TEXTUAL  NOTES. 

Page  274,  13.  federal  numbers  —  that  count  of  population 
upon  which  represontation  in  Congress  is  apportioned. 

Page  277,  14.  Louisiana  —  not  the  limited  area  now  em- 
braced by  the  State  of  tliat  name,  but  the  immense  territory 


Calhoun:    On  tJie  Slavery  Question,  375 

iHitweeii  the  Mississippi  uiul  tlu*  Rocky  Mountains  purchused 
Ironi  France  in  180JJ. 

25  ff.  By  some  injulverU-ncc  ••  llu-  ^Kjilion  lying  .south  of 
30°  30'"  is  enumerated  twice  in  this  statement.  The  sense  will 
be  clear  if  we  omit  the  first  mention  altojjether,  and  rea«I,  "  To 
the  South  was  left  .  .  .  the  portion  of  I^ouisiana  lyin^  north  of 
'Hy^  30'  included  in  the  state  of  Missouri,  with  "  etc. 

Page  284,  25.  I  then  so  expressed  myself,  uotaltly  in  tlic 
debates  of  1830-1837. 

Page  288,  7  ff.  The  rupture  between  the  Northern  and 
Southern  wings  of  the  Methodist  and  Baptist  Churches  occurred 
in  1845.  That  in  the  Presbyterian  Church,  which  the  speaker 
foresaw,  occurred  shortly  after  the  outbreak  of  the  war,  in  1802. 
The  schism  in  all  these  cases  still  exists. 

Page  289,  31.  The  reader  will  recall  in  iH>int  such  utter- 
ances as  the  jHiroration  of  Mr.  Webster's  si»eech  of  twenty  years 
bt'f.)re. 

Page  292,  25.  The  distinguished  senator  was  Henry  Clay. 
His  plan,  the  Compromise  of  1850,  was  this:  «*The  admission  of 
California  was  to  be  made  acceptable  to  the  South  by  giving 
slavery  a  chance  iff  Utah  and  New  Mexico,  and  by  the  enactment 
of  a  more  efficient  fugitive  slave  law.  The  Northern  jHJople  were 
to  be  reconciled  to  the  abandonment  of  the  Wilmot  Proviso  [for 
which  see  just  Iwlow],  as  to  Utah  and  New  Mexico,  and  to  a 
more  efficient  fugitive  slave  law  by  the  admission  of  California  :ks 
a  free  State  and  by  the  al>olition  of  the  slave-trade  in  the  District 
of  Columbia."  —  Caui.  Sciiruz,  in  his  Henry  Clay,  ii.,  p.  332. 

Page  293,  9.  Tlu;  "Wilmot  Proviso  was  a  rider  attached  to 
a  bill  providing  for  the  settlement  of  <Iifficulties  with  Mexico  by  a 
purchase  of  territory.  It  stipulated  "that  neither  slavery  nor 
involuntary  8er\'itude  shall  ever  exist  in  any  part  of  said  territorj'." 
This  proviso  passed  the  House,  but  was  defeated  in  the  Senate. 
Its  principle,  however,  was  affirmed  by  nearly  all  the  Northern 
l(>gislature8,  and  was  taken  as  the  foundation  of  the  Free  Soil 
I»arty. 

Page  297,  7  ff.  "  These  were  the  last  words  of  the  last  s|)cech 
of  the  great  and  honest  nullifier.   He  could  no  more  supitort  himself. 


376  Notes. 

Two  friendB  had  to  lead  him  out  of  the- Senate  chanil)er.  Slowly 
and  heavily  the  curtain  rolled  down  to  shut  from  the  public  gaze 
the  last  scene  of  the  grand  tragedy  of  this  brilliant  life.  For 
nearly  twenty  years  the  suspicion,  and  even  the  direct  accusation, 
had  weighed  on  his  shoulders  that  he  was  systematically  working 
at  the  destruction  of  the  Union.  By  doing  more  than  any  other 
single  man  towards  raising  the  slavocracy  to  the  pinnacle  of 
ix)wer,  he  had  actually  done  more  than  any  other  man  to  hasten 
the  catastrophe  and  to  determine  its  character ;  and  yet  he  labored 
to  the  last  with  the  intense  anxiety  of  a  true  patriot  to  avert  the 
fearful  calamity.  Hut  the  last  efforts  of  his  {wwerful  mind  were  a 
most  overwhelming  refutation  of  all  the  doctrines  whose  foremost 
champion  he  had  been  ever  since  the  days  of  nullification.  It 
would  have  been  impossible  to  pdss  a  more  annihilating  judgment 
on  them  than  he  himself  did  in  his  speech  of  March  4,  1850."  — 
Von  llouiT  in  liis  John  C.  Calhoun^  page  348. 


WILLIAM   H.  SEWARD. 


William  II.  Seward  was  born  in  Orange  County,  New  York, 
in  1801.  At  nineteen  years  of  age  he  was  graduated  from  Union 
College.  At  twenty-three  he  began  the  practice  of  law.  After 
filling  the  {wsitions  of  Senator  and  Governor  of  his  own  State,  in 
1849  he  entered  the  United  States  Senate.  There  he  found 
Webster,  Calhoun,  and  Clay,  those  giants  of  the  elder  time,  whose 
sands  of  life  were  nearly  run.  The  dawn  of  the  newer  time  was 
indeed  already  discerned,  though  its  troubled  light  was  destined 
to  fa<le  out  in  darkness  and  tenn>est  l)efore  the  day  could  be  fully 
ushered  in.  For  twelve  years,  while  the  forces  were  mustering 
for  the  deatlly  conflict,  he  kept  his  jx)st,  alert  and  watchful,  in  the 
Senate.  For  four  years,  while  the  conflict  lasted,  he  stood  by 
Lincoln's  side  as  his  faithful  Secretary  of  State.  Stricken  almost 
unto  death  at  the  same  time  with  Lincoln,  he  nevertheless  re- 
covered, and  stood  by  Lincoln's  successor  to  the  end  of  his  term. 
Three  years  of  rest  from  the  burdens  of  public  service  —  of  en- 
joyment of  well-earned  honors  —  were  left  to  round  out  his  life. 
He  died  Oct  10,  1872. 

The  speech  on  the  Irrepressible  Conflict  was  a  political  address 
delivered  at  Rochester,  New  York,  in  Mr.  Seward's  canvass  of 
that  State  in  behalf  of  the  newly  formed  Republican  party.  It 
made  a  profound  impression.  Though  separated  by  a  consider- 
able interval  from  Calhoun's  stern  arraignment  of  the  spirit  of  the 
North  as  the  spirit  of  disunion,  this  is,  perhaps,  the  most  direct 
answer  to  that  speech  in  its  counter-arraignment  of  the  spirit  of 
the  South.  In  simplicity,  in  directness,  and  in  determined  con- 
centration upon  the  one  point  at  issue,  the  two  speeches  are  strik- 
ingly alike.  As  compared  with  the  genial  largeness  and  range  of 
Webster's  view,  tlujse  qualities  mark  a  much  later  stag*  of  tlie 
struggle  between  flu*  (»i>i»<)sing  ideas  —  a  stage  in  which  all 

877     • 


378  NoteB, 

sories  and  complications  are  impatiently  brushed  aside,  and  the 
naked  issue  is  confronted.  One  feels,  as  he  hears  such  challenge 
and  defiance,  that  the  sword-strokes  are  not  long  to  wait. 

PAtiK  298,  7.  The  young  student,  of  course,  will  not  make 
the  mistake  of  supposing  that  what  is  said  in  this  speech  is  to  be 
understood  of  political  parties  now  calling  themselves  Democratic 
and  liepublican.  Names  often  outlast  the  ideas  they  once  stood 
for.  As  a  matter  of  fact.  Democrat  and  liepublican  in  early 
American  politics  were  synonymous  terms,  applied  alike  to  the 
party  opi>osed  to  the  Federal  Union,  —  the  party  originally  made 
up,  as  Mr.  Ilayne  put  it,  of  'Hhose  who  wanted  no  union  of  the 
suites,  and  [those]  who  disliked  the  proix)sed  form  of  union." 
Their  opponents  were  the  Federalists.  After  1808  the  name 
Republican  was  gradually  dropped,  and  was  not  heard  of  again 
until,  in  1856,  it  was  taken  up  by  the  new  {>arty  formed  to  oppose 
the  Democrats.     See  pages  207  and  310,  I.  4  fP. 

Pagk  303,  21.  For  the  ordinance  of  1787,  see  Webster's 
Speech,  p.  191,  and  consult  U.  S.  History  s.  v. 

Pack  305,  15.  Dred  Scott  was  a  negro  who  brought  suit 
for  his  freedom  on  the  ground  that  his  mjvster  ha<l  taken  him  to 
a  State  where  slavery  was  prohibited,  and  that  he  had  thereby 
become  free.  The  case  was  taken  up  to  the  Supreme  Court, 
which  rendered  in  1857  the  famous  decision  declaring  not  only 
that  free  colored  persons  whose  ancestors  were  im{)orted  into  this 
country  and  sold  as  slaves,  "  had  no  rights  which  the  white  man 
is  l>ound  to  respect,"  but  furthermore  that  Congress  had  no 
power  to  prohibit  slavery  in  the  Territories,  and  that  the  Mis- 
souri Compromise  Act  was  null  and  void. 

Page  310,  6  ft.  The  party  was  organized  for  the  first  time 
in  February,  1856.  Its  first  convention  met  in  June  of  the  same 
year,  and  nominated  Colonel  Fremont  for  the  presidency.  In  the 
election  which  followed,  Colonel  Frdmont  secured  one  hundred 
and  fourteen  electoral  votes,  as  against  Mr.  Buchanan's  one  hun- 
dred and  seventy-four.  In  thirteen  of  the  sixteen  free  States 
the  Republicans  elected  their  State  tickets,  and  gave  Fremont 
a  majority  over  Buchanan,  all  told,  of  two  hundred  thousand 
votes.     See  Seward's  Works,  iv.,  p.  43. 


AIJUAUAM    Ll.NCULN. 


AiiUAiiAM  Lincoln — Rom  February  12,  1800;  died  April  I'l, 
iSii't.  The  story  of  his  early  life,  tlie  discipline  in  which  his 
|M»vers  were  trained,  tluj  part  ho,  played  in  the  tremendous  drama 
<»r  our  Civil  War,  —  his  stead I'ajstness,  his  gentleness,  the  great- 
rit>s8  of  his  heart,  and  the  pathos  of  his  death  in  the  very  hour  of 
victory, — are  known  unto  all  men. 

Aft^T  the  battle  of  Gettysburg,  in  July,  18(3'J,  it  was  proposed 
to  set  apart  a  jwrtion  of  the  battle-ground  as  a  i>eri)etual  memo- 
rial of  those  who  hiwl  thei-e  laid  down  their  lives  at  their  coun- 
t  ry*s  neeil.  The  suggestion  was  carrie<l  out ;  and  on  Noveml>er 
1!)  of  tiiat  year  the  National  Cemetery  was  solemnly  consecrated. 
The  words  s|K>ken  by  President  Lincoln  on  that  day  have  lieen 
liostMi  as  a  fitting  conclusion  to  this  collection  of  sj»eeches.  A 
tac-simile  of  the  original  manuscript  may  be  seeu  in  The  Centuri/ 
yf, ,.„,-;„.■  for  I'Vbniary,  IbUi. 


THE    END. 


^ 


ENGLISH. 


Introduction   to  Theme'Writing 

By  J.   U.  Fletcher,  Harvard   University,  and   Professor  G.  R.  Car- 
penter, Columbia  College.     1 6mo,  cloth,  136  pages.     Price,  Co  cents. 

THE  lectures  that  form  the  basis  of  tliis  book  were  delivered 
by  Mr.  Fletcher  before  the  Freshman  class  at  Harvard  Col- 
lege in  the  spring  of  1893.  These  have  been  rearranged,  with  ad- 
ditional matter  by  Professor  Carpenter.  The  result  is  a  text-book 
for  students  who  have  completed  the  introductory  course  in  rhet- 
oric usually  prescribed  at  the  beginning  of  the  Freshman  year. 

The  fundamental  idea  of  the  book  is  that  in  practising  any  of 
the  various  kinds  of  composition  the  student  must  decide  :  — 

1.  Just  what  treatment  will  be  most  appropriate  to  the  sub- 
ject-matter in  general. 

2.  What  treatment  will  most  clearly  bring  out  his  own  indi- 
vidual ideas  or  impressions  of  this  matter. 

3.  What  treatment  will  make  this  subject  most  clear  to  the 
particular  class  of  readers  or  hearers  which  he  has  in  mind. 

Letter-writing,  Translation,  Description,  Criticism,  Exposi- 
tion, and  Argument  are  each  treated  in  a  clear  and  concise 
manner,  and  exercises  on  each  subject  are  freely  introduced. 

Professor  John  F.  Genung,  in  The  School  Rciiciv  for  September,  1S94:  In- 
stead of  Ix'ing  directed  to  grind  out  these  things  (compositions),  the  stu- 
dent is  here  set  at  real  literary  tasks,  forms  of  composition  such  as  the  best 
writers  cultivate,  methods  that  obtain  in  the  highest  enterprises  of  litera- 
ture, ways  of  working  such  as,  once  mastered,  will  never  cftase  to  be  prac- 
tical. In  this  tiiere  is  great  advantage.  If  the  student  must  "go  through 
with  the  motions  "of  composition,  as  of  course  he  must,  there  is  great 
stimulus  in  his  undertaking,  from  the  outset,  work  that  he  may  recog- 
nize as  real,  and  th.it  he  may  compare  at  every  step  with  the  literature 
of  books  and  magazines. 

Professor  James  W.  Bright, /oAnj  Hopkins  University:  The  subject  of  the 
little  treatise  is  handkid  with  such  admirable  clearness  and  directness  as 
to  give  it  a  genuine  attractiveness  which  no  teacher,  and,  it  is  to  be  hoped, 
few  pupils,  would  fail  to  perceive. 

Professor  Fred  N.  Scott,  Unix'ersHy  of  Michigan :  Theme-Writing  is  an 
admirable  little  work.  It  has  a  breadth  of  view  and  a  charm  of  style  that 
are  often  painfully  abwnt  from  text-books  in  English.  The  book  is  well 
adapted  to  tlie  needs  of  our  students. 


ENGLISH. 


Orations  and  Arguments 

Edited  by  Professor  C.  B.  Bradley,  University  ui  ^^.uiuinn.i.     121110, 
cloth,  3.S5  pages.     Price,  f  i.oo. 

The  following  speeches  are  contained  in  the  book :  — 
Burke:  Webster: 

On  Conciliation  with  the  Col-  The  Reply  to  Hayne. 

onies,  and  Speech  before  the  Elec-        Macau  lay  • 
tors  at  Bristol.  ^^  ^^  j^^^^^  g.„  ^^ 

Chatham:  Calhoun: 

On  American  Attairs.  r^    ^x.    c\  r\      »• 

On  the  Slavery  Question. 

"'^"^r'         ...^  Sewarh: 

m  tl«  Mockdale  Case.  ,  „,  ^,, .  ,^51,^  Conflict. 

Lincoln: 

The  Gettysburg  Address. 

IN  making  this  selection,  the  test  applied  to  each  si)eech  was 
that  it  should  be  in  itself  memorable,  attaining  its  distinc- 
tion through  the  essential  qualities  of  nobility  and  force  of  ideas, 
and  that  it  should  be,  in  topic,  so  related  to  the  great  thoughts, 
memories,  or  problems  of  our  own  time  as  to  have  for  us  still  an 
inherent  and  vital  interest. 

The  speeches  thus  chosen  have  been  printed  from  the  best 
available  texts,  without  change,  save  that  the  spelling  has  been 
made  uniform  throughout,  and  that  three  of  the  speeches  — 
those  of  Webster,  Calhoun,  and  Seward  —  have  been  shortened 
somewhat  by  the  omission  of  matters  of  merely  temiK>ral  or 
local  interest.  The  omitted  portions  have  been  summarized  for 
the  reader,  whenever  they  bear  upon  the  main  argument. 

The  Notes  aim  to  furnish  the  reader  with  whatever  help  is 
necessary  to  the  proper  appreciation  of  the  speeches ;  to  avoid 
bewildering  him  with  mere  subtleties  and  display  of  erudition : 
and  to  encourage  in  him  habits  of  self-help  and  familiarity  with 
sources  of  information. 

A  special  feature  of  this  part  of  the  work  is  a  sketch  of  the 
English  Constitution  and  Government,  intended  as  a  general 
introduction  to  the  English  speeches. 

The  collection  includes  material  enough  to  permit  of  a  varied 
selection  for  the  use  of  successive  classes  in  the  schools. 


ENGLISH.  3 


Professor  J.  M.  Hart,  Cornell  University:  Bradley's  Orations  and  Argu- 
ments is  a  good  b(M>k.  I  am  glad  to  have  it,  and  shall  take  pk;asure  in 
recommending  its  use.  The  thought  of  bringing  togetlicr  a  few  of  tlie 
best  speeches  by  the  best  Englishmen  and  Americans,  in  a  volume  of 
moderate  size,  is  an  excellent  one.  The  selection  is  judicious,  and  as 
representative  as  the  limits  permit.  The  annotation  seems  to  me  to  be 
sound.  1  am  especially  pleased  with  the  general  notes  on  the  English 
Constitution  and  Governn>ent.  They  ought  to  clear  up  a  good  many 
puzzles  and  obscurities  for  tlie  students. 

Professor  T.  W.  Hunt,  College  of  New  Jersey ^  Princeton :  It  is  a  book  that 
will  be  of  practical  service  in  the  sphere  of  argumentation  and  forensic 
address.    The  notes  add  much  to  its  value. 

Professor  J.  H.  Penniman,  University  of  Pennsylvania :  It  seems  to  l»  an 
excellent  book,  and  will  prove  a  great  aid  to  teachers  of  rhetoric  and  com- 
position. The  literary  side  of  oratory  is  prominently  set  forth  by  the 
selections  chosen. 

Byron  Groce,  Boston  Latin  School:  It  is  a  remarkably  fine  book;  fine  in 
selection,  in  editing,  in  print,  paper,  and  form.  I  wish  I  might  have 
copies  for  one  of  my  classes.  I  long  ago  publicly  urged  that  a  larger 
selection  of  orations  be  given  in  our  literature  courses,  which,  though 
perhaps  not  too  literary,  certainly  needed  the  variety  such  selections  as 
tliese  you  publish  will  give. 

Wilson  Farrand,  Newark  Academy,  N.  J. :  The  book  is  admirable  in  every 
way  —  selection  of  speeches,  annotation,  and  mechanical  execution.  The 
special  excellence  of  the  notes  seems  to  me  to  be  in  their  historical  sagges- 
tiveness,  and  the  special  value  of  the  book  in  its  connecting  litornn,-  and 
historical  study. 

E.  H.  Lewis,  University  of  Chicago:  The  principles  on  which  tl»ese  selec- 
tions have  been  made  are  thoroughly  sound.  The  notes  are  adequate,  but 
not  too  full.    The  book  is  a  most  available  and  useful  one. 

Professor  Edward  E.  Hale,  Jr.,  Iowa  State  University,  Icnva  City :  I  have 
read  the  Urgcr  p.irt  of  it  with  great  pleasure.  I  think  it  will  serve  Its 
purpose  very  well,  for  the  selections  are  excellent,  and  st»  are  the  notes. 
The  book  supplies  gotxl  material  which  cannot  easily  be  found  else- 
where in  so  compact  a  form,  and  which  ought  to  bo  a  great  help  to  many 
teachers. 

Professor  H.  W.  Snyder,  h  ,//,>*./  «  ,'//,\v.  .>/•>"■ 
ci«>«s  sekHTtions,  and  Iwlpful  and  interesting  i\- 
useful  book. 


ENGLISH. 


Studies  in  English  Composition 

By  Harriet  C.  Keeler,  High  School,  Cleveland,  Ohio,  anci   I^mma 
C.  Davis,  Cleveland,  Ohio.     lamo,  cloth,  210  pages.    Price,  80  cents. 

THIS  book  is  the  outgrowth  of  experience  in  teaching  compo- 
sition, and  the  lessons  which  it  contains  have  all  borne  the 
actual  test  of  the  class-room.  Intended  to  meet  the  wants  of 
those  schools  which  have  composition  as  a  weekly  exercise  in 
their  course  of  study,  it  contains  an  orderly  succession  of  topics 
adapted  to  the  age  and  development  of  high  school  pupils,  to- 
gethei*with  such  le,s.sons  in  languairt-  ami  rlittoric  as  are  of  con- 
stant application  in  class  exercises. 

The  authors  believe  that  too  muen  iiuniioii  cannot  l)c  givtn 
to  supplying  young  writers  with  good  models,  which  not  only 
indicate  what  is  expected,  and  serve  as  an  ideal  toward  which 
to  work,  but  stimulate  and  encourage  the  learner  in  his  first 
efforts.  For  this  reason  numerous  examples  of  good  writing 
have  been  given,  and  many  more  have  been  suggested. 

The  primal  idea  of  the  book  is  that  the  pupil  learns  to  write 
by  writing;  and  therefore  that  it  is  of  more  importance  to  get 
him  to  write  than  to  prevent  his  making  mistakes  in  writing. 
Consequently,  the  pupil  is  set  to  writing  at  the  very  outset ;  the 
idea^af  producing  something  is  kept  constantly  uppermost,  and 
the  function  of  criticism  is  reserved  until  after  something  has 
been  done  which  may  be  criticised. 

J.  W.  Steams,  Professor  of  Pedagosiy,  Unhrrsiiy  of  Wisconsin:  It  strikes 
me  that  the  author  of  your  "Studies  in  English  Composition"  touches 
the  gravest  defect  in  school  composition  work  when  she  writes  in  her  pref- 
ace :  "  One  may  as  well  grasp  a  sea-anemone,  and  expect  it  to  show  its 
beauty,  as  ask  a  child  to  write  from  his  own  experience  when  he  expects 
every  sentence  to  be  dislocated  in  order  to  be  improved."  In  order  to 
improve  the  beauty  of  the  body,  we  drive  out  the  soul  m  our  extreme  for- 
mal criticisms  of  school  compositions.  She  has  made  a  book  which 
teaches  children  to  write  by  getting  them  to  write  often  and  freely ;  and  if 
used  with  the  spirit  which  has  presided  over  the  making  of  it,  it  will  prove 
a  most  effective  instrument  for  the  reform  of  school  composition  work. 

Albert  G.  Owen,  SupcritUendent,  Afton,  Iowa:  It  is  an  excellent  text.  I 
am  highly  pleased  with  it.     The  best  of  the  kind  I  have  yet  seen. 


ENGLISH. 


H.  C.  Miasimer,  Suferinttndeni,  Erit,  Pa. :  There  is  nothing  but  praise 
from  our  teachers  for  the  book.    It  is  a  great  success. 

Edward  L.  Harris,  Principal  of  Central  High  School,  Cleveland,  Ohio: 
After  giving  the  boolc  a  very  careful  review,  I  unhesitatingly  pronounce  it 
to  be  tite  very  best  worlc  of  the  Icind  1  have  ever  seen. 

C.  F.  Boyden,  Superintendent,  Taunton,  Mass, :  I  consider  this  a  gem  of  the 
first  water.    I  have  examined  it  f  rom  tieginning  to  end,  and  find  it  all  good. 

Albert  Leonard,  Principal  of  High  School,  Dinghamton,  N.  Y.:  In  my 
opinion  Keeler's  "  Studies  in  English  Composition "  is  by  far  the  best 
lxK>k  of  the  kind  that  has  ever  been  published. 

C.  H.  Douglas,  Principal  of  High  School,  Hartford,  Conn.:  ".Studies  in 
Knglish  Coni{X)sition"  is  the  most  useful  book  of  its  class  tha{  I  have 
seen.  In  variety  of  matter  and  practical  suggestions  it  leaves  little  more 
to  Ix;  desired. 

S.  W.  Landon,  Principal  of  High  School,  Burlington,  Vt. :  I  consider  it  one 
of  the  strongest  Ijooks  on  tlie  subject  that  I  have  ever  seen,  presenting 
some,  to  me,  new  and  especially  admirable  features. 

Harry  H.  Bumham,  High  School,  Biddeford,  Me. :  I  have  been  trying  the 
book  rvith  one  of  my  cbsses,  and  the  experience  has  only  served  to 
strengthen  ny  good  opinion  of  it ;  it  is  the  best  book  to  place  in  tlie 
hands  uf  the  pupil  that  I  have  yet  seen. 

Professor  H.  S.  Kritz,  Wttbash  College,  CrcnvfordsvilU,  Ind.:  I  am  using 
the  book  with  great  success  in  a  class  of  about  forty.  I  have  never  before 
been  able  to  secure  so  much  originality  in  tIte  compositions  of  my  students 
as  with  this  method.  Composition  is  usually  regarded  as  a  very  unpleas- 
ant task,  but  with  this  book  it  is  a  delightful  recreation. 

Professor  J.  V.  Denney,  Ohio  State  University,  Columbus,  Ohio:  Remark- 
ably suggestive  and  admirably  planned.  It  is  just  the  kind  of  English 
work  that  will  m.ake  good  writers  of  pupils  of  high  school  grade. 

J.  B.  Fitzpatrick,  Parochial  School,  Cambridgeport,  Mass. :  I  know  of  no 
otiter  work  like  it  —  simple,  plain,  and  practical.  Ity  following  its  in- 
structions, much  of  the  time  spent  in  kerning  how  to  do  will  be  spent  in 
doing,  and  the  knowledge  gained  by  doing  is  the  knowledge  that  sticks. 

L.  B.  L«e,  Principal  of  High  School,  Decatur,  III. :  I  consider  your  "  Studies 
in  English  Composition  "  a  very  superior  work.  The  material  is  good  and 
excellently  arranged. 

W.  H.  Small,  Superintendent  of  Schools,  Palmer,  Mass. :  "Studies  in  Eng- 
lish Composition  "  is  one  of  tl»e  most  pr.-ictical  outlines  of  study  ever  offered 
to  teachm  or  pupils.  It  couU  have  been  conceived  only  by  practical  and 
practised  teachers. 


ENGLISH. 


DcQuincey's  Essays  on  Style,  Rhetoric, 
and   Language 

Edited  by  Professor  Fred  N.  Scott,  University  of  Michigan.     lamo, 
276  pages.     Price,  60  cents. 

THE  essays  selected  are  those  which  deal  directly  with  the 
theory  of  literature.  The  ap])endix  contains  such  passages 
from  DeQuincey's  other  writings  as  will  be  of  most  assistance 
to  the  student.  The  introduction  and  notes  are  intended  to 
re-enforce,  not  to  forestall,  research. 

Principles  of  Success  in  Literature 

By  George  Henry  Lewes.    Edited  with  Introduction  and  Notes  by 
Professor  Fred  N.  Scott,    lamo,  159  pages.    Price,  50  cents. 

THE  object  of  reprinting  this  admirable  little  treatise  on  lit- 
erature is  to  make  it  available  for  classes  in  rhetoric  and 
literary  criticism.  Scarcely  any  other  wprk  will  be  found  so 
thoroughly  sound  in  principles,  and  so  suggestive  and  inspiring. 
The  value  of  the  present  edition  is  greatly  increased  by  the 
excellent  introduction  by  Professor  Scott,  and  by  a  full  index, 
which  adds  much  to  its  convenience. 

Professor  0.  B.  Clarke,  Indiana  University,  Bloomingion  :  Vour  reprint  of 
I^wes*s  articles  on  "  The  Principles  of  Success  in  Literature  "  puts  an- 
other sharp  and  serviceable  tool  into  the  hands  of  the  teacher  and  student 
of  the  art  of  com{X)sition.  Professor  Scott,  as  well  as  yourselves,  deserves 
the  thanks  of  all  who  care  for  truth  and  force  in  working. 

Spencer's  Philosophy  of  Style  fS^Wright's 
Essay  on  Style 

Edited  by  Professor  Fred  N.  Scott.    i2mo,  92  pages.    Price,  45  cents. 

THE  plan  has  been  followed  of  providing  a  biographical  and 
critical  introduction,  an  index,  and  a  few  notes,  —  the  latter 
designed  to  provoke  discussion  or  to  furnish  clews  for  further 
investigation. 


ENGLISH. 


Paragraph-  Writing 

By  Professor  F.  N.  Scott,  University  of  Michigan,  and   Professor  J. 
V.  DENNEY,Ohio  State  University.     i2mo,  304  pages.    Price,  ?i.oo. 

THE  principles  embodied  in  this  work  were  developed  and  put 
in  practice  by  its  authors  at  the  University  of  Michigan  sev- 
eral years  ago.  Its  aim  is  to  make  the  paragraph  the  basis  of  a 
method  of  composition,  and  to  present  all  the  important  facts  of 
rhetoric  in  their  application  to  it. 

In  Part  I.  the  nature  and  laws  of  the  paragraph  are  presented  ; 
the  structure  and  function  of  the  isolated  paragraph  are  dis- 
cussed, and  considerable  space  is  devoted  to  related  paragraphs ; 
that  is,  those  which  are  combined  into  es.says. 

Part  II.  is  a  chapter  on  the  theory  of  the  paragraph  intended 
for  teachers  and  advanced  students. 

Part  III.  contains  copious  material  for  cla.ss  work,  selected 
paragraphs,  suggestions  to  teachers,  lists  of  subjects  for  composi- 
tions (about  two  thousand),  and  helpful  references  of  many  kinds. 

The  Revised  Edition  contains  a  chapter  on  the  Rhetoric  of  the 
Paragraph,  in  which  will  be  found  applications  of  the  paragraph- 
idea  to  the  sentence,  and  to  the  constituent  parts  of  the  .sentence, 
so  far  as  these  demand  especial  notice.  The  new  material  thus 
provided  supplies,  in  the  form  of  principles  and  illustrations,  as 
much  additional  theory  as  the  student  of  Elementary  Rhetoric 
needs  to  master  and  apply,  in  order  to  improve  the  details  of 
his  paragraphs  in  unity,  clearness,  and  force. 

Professor  J.  M.  Hart,  Cornell  University :  The  style  of  the  writers  is  ad- 
mirable for  clearness  and  correctness.  .  . .  They  have  produced  sji  uncom- 
numly  sensible  textbook.  .  .  .  For  college  work  it  will  be  hard  to  beat. 
I  know  of  no  otiicr  book  at  all  comparable  to  it  for  frvshman  drill. 

Professor  Charles  Mills  Gayley,  UnttrrsUy  of  California:  Paragraph- 
Writing  is  tl»e  best  thing  of  its  kind,  —  the  only  systematic  and  exhauMive 
effort  to  picMi\t  .1  ( atditi.il  feature  of  rhetorical  training  to  the  educational 
world. 

The  Dial,  .  iph-Writing  Is  one  of  tin?  really  practical 

books  on  Enghsh  composition.  ...  A  book  that  successfully  illustrates 
the  three  articles  of  the  rhetorician's  creed,  —  theor>',  exampk.%  and  practice. 


ENGLISH. 


From  Milton  to  Tennyson 

Masterpieces  of  English  Poetry.     Edited  by  L.  Du  PoNT  Syle,  Uni- 
versity of  California.     i2mo,  cloth,  4S0  pages.    Price,  $1.00. 

IN  this  work  the  editor  has  endeavored  to  bring  together  witliin 
the  compass  of  a  moderate-sized  volume  as  much  narrative, 
descriptive,  and  lyric  verse  as  a  student  may  reasonably  be  re- 
quired to  read  critically  for  entrance  to  college.  From  the 
nineteen  poets  represented,  only  such  masterpieces  have  been 
selected  as  are  within  the  range  of  the  understanding  and  the 
sympathy  of  the  high  .school  student.  Each  masterpiece  is 
given  complete,  except  for  pedagogical  reasons  in  the  cases  of 
Tliomson,  Cowi)er,  IJyron,  and  Browning.  Exigencies  of  space 
have  compelled  the  editor  reluctantly  to  omit  Scott  from  this 
volume.  The  copyright  laws,  of  course,  exclude  American  |X)ets 
from  the  scope  of  this  work. 

The  low  price  of  the  book,  together  with  its  strong  and  attrac- 
tive binding,  make  it  especially  desirable  for  those  teachers  who 
read  with  their  classes  even  a  small  part  of  the  poems  it  contains. 

President  D.  S.  Jordan,  Letand  Slanford^Jr.^  University^  Cal.:  I  have  re- 
ceived the  copy  of  Mr.  Syle's  book,"  From  Milton  to  Tennyson,"  and  have 
looked  it  over  with  a  great  deal  of  interest,  it  seems  to  be  an  excellent 
work  for  the  pur^xise.  The  selections  seem  well  adapted  to  high  school 
use,  and  the  notes  are  wisely  chosen  and  well  stated. 

Professor  Henry  A.  Beers,  Yale  University:  The  notes  are  helpful  and 
suggestive.  What  is  more,  —  and  what  is  unusual  in  text-book  annota- 
tions, —  they  are  interesting  and  make  very  good  reading ;  not  at  all  school- 
masterish,  but  really  literary  in  their  taste  and  discernment  of  nice  points. 

Professor  Elmer  E.  Wentworth,  Vassar  College:  It  is  a  most  attractive 
book  in  appearance  outward  and  inward,  the  selections  satisfactory  and 
just,  the  notes  excellent.  In  schools  where  less  time  is  given  than  in  ours, 
no  other  book  known  to  me,  me  judice^  will  be  so  good.  I  wish  to  com- 
mend the  notes  again. 

Wm.  E.  Griffis,  Ithaca,  N.Y.:  The  whole  work  shows  independent  research 
as  well  as  refined  taste  and  a  repose  of  judgment  that  is  admirable.  The 
selected  pieces  are  not  overburdened  with  critical  notes,  while  the  sugges- 
tions for  comparison  and  criticism,  to  be  made  by  the  student  himself,  are 
very  valuable. 


ENGLISH. 


Isabel  Graves,  H't/UsUy  College,  WelUsUy,  A  fuss.:  I  am  pleased 
with  the  ap|X'ar.ince  of  the  book,  and  find  that  the  selection  of  mxsterpieces 
gives  the  desired  variety.  'I"he  notes  are  fortunately  directed  against 
some  prejudices,  and  must  prove  suggestive. 

W.  E.  Sargent,  Hebron  Acatiitny,  Hebron,  Me. :  The  book  is  a  gem  —  just 
enough  selections,  and  the  very  best  ones  of  each  author. 

P.  A.  Tupper,  Principal  of  Hlt^h  School,  Quincy,  Mass.:  Mr'.  Syle's  "  From 
Milton  to  Tennyson  "  is  a  most  admirable  book  in  conception  and  execu- 
tion. The  selections,  both  of  authors  and  of  poems,  evince  true  poetic 
feeling  and  rare  taste.  The  sketches,  notes,  and  bibliography  everywhere 
bear  marks  of  sound  and  scientific  teaching  power.  The  book  is  .idapted 
not  only  to  schools  and  colleges,  but  also  to  the  library  and  tlie  hon>e.  I 
feel  indebted  to  the  etlitor  of  this  book,  and  in  expressing  my  approval, 
I  am  making  only  a  slight  return  for  the  profit  derived  from  the  volume. 

Professor  Edward  S.  Parsons,  Colorado  ColUj^e:  I  find  the  book  extremely 
v;ilua!)le  for  the  wisdom  of  its  selections ;  for  its  comprehensive,  yet  care- 
fully chosen  bibliography  ;  and  for  its  pointed  and  entertaining  style. 


The  following  poets  are  represented :  — 


MILTON,  by  the 
DRYDEN  .     .    . 


POPE  .  .  . 
THOMSON  . 
JOHNSON  . 
GRAY  .     . 

GOLDSMITH 
COWPER 
BURNS      .     . 


COLERIDGE     . 
BYRON      .     .     . 

KEATS       . 

SHELLEY     . 

WORDSWORTH 

MACAULAY      . 
CLOUGH 

ARNOLD  . 
BROWNING     . 
TENNYSON 


L'AlIesro,  II  Penseroso,  Lyddas,  and  a  Selection  from  the 

Sonnets. 
Kpistic  to  Congrevc,  Alexander's  Feast,  Character  of  a  Good 

Parson. 
Kpistles  to  Mr.  ]cr\vts,  to  Ix)rd  Burlington,  and  to  Augustus. 
Winter. 

V.inity  of  Human  Wishes. 

Klejfy  Written  in  a  Country  Churchyard,  .nnd  Tlif  r..ird. 
Deserted  VilLige. 
Winter  Morning's  Walk. 
Colter's  Saturday  Night,  Tarn  O'Shantcr,  and  a  Selection 

from  the  Songs. 
Ancient  Mariner. 
Isles  of  Greece  and  .Selections  from  Childe  Harold,  Manfred, 

and  the  Hebrew  Melodies. 
Kvc  of  .St.  Agnes,  Ode  to  a  Nightingale,  Sonnet  on  Chapman's 

Homer. 
Kupncan  Hills,  The  Cloud,  The  Skylark,  and   the  Two 

Sonnets  nn  the  Nile. 
I..indaniia.  The  Hishland  r.irl,Tlntem  Abbey,  The  Cuckoo, 

'n»e  Ode  to  a  Skylark,  The  Milton  Sonnet.  The  Ode  to 

Duty,  and  the  Ode  on  ilic  Intimations  of  Immortality. 
Horatius. 

'I'wo  .ShiiM,  the  Prologue  to  the  Mari  Matrno,  and  The  law- 
yer's First  Tale. 
Scholar>Gypsy  and  the  Forsaken  Menn.in 
Traniicript  from  Kuri|iidcs  (Italauslion's  Advcnturr  >. 
<Kn»nc.  the  Monc  I  ('Arthur, 'llie  Miller's  Daughter,  and  a 

Selection  (rum  tlic  Soug». 


10  ENGLISH. 


Select  Essays  of  Macaulay 

Edited  by   Samuel   Thurber,  Girls'   High   Fchool.  Roston,     i2mo, 
205  pages ;  cloth,  70  cents ;  boards,  50  cents. 

THIS  selection  comprises  the  essays  uu  .Si n ton,  liunyan. 
Jc5linson,  Cioldsmith,  and  Madame  D'Arblay,  thus  giv- 
ing illustrations  both  of  Macaulay's  earlier  and  of  his  later 
style.  It  aims  to  put  into  the  Mnds  of  high  school  pupils  speci- 
mens of  English  prose  that  shall  be  eminently  interesting  to 
read  and  study  in  class,  and  which  shall  serve  as  models  of  clear 
and  vigorous  writing. 

The  subjects  of  the  essays  are  such  as  to  bring  them  into 
close  reliition  with  the  study  of  general  English  literature. 

The  annotation  is  intended  to  serve  as  a  guide  and  stimulus  to 
research  rather  than  as  a  substitute  for  research.  The  tio/es^ 
therefore,  are  few  in  number.  Only  when  an  allusion  of  Macau- 
lay  is  decidedly  difficult  to  verify  does  the  editor  give  the  result 
of  his  own  investigations.  In  all  other  cases  he  leads  the  pujiil 
to  make  investigation  for  himself,  believing  that  a  good  method 
in  English,  as  in  other  studies,  should  leave  as  much  free  jilay 
as  possible  to  the  activity  of  the  learner. 

Historical  Essays  of  Macau/ay 

Edited  by  Samuel  Thurber.    12010,  cloth,  394  pages.    Price,  80  cents. 

THIS  selection  includes  the  essays  on  Lord  Clive,  Warren 
Hastings,  and  both  those  on  the  Earl  of  Chatham.  The 
text  in  each  case  is  given  entire.  A  map  of  India,  giving  the 
location  of  places  named  in  the  essays,  is  included. 

The  notes  are  intended  to  help  the  pupil  to  help  himself. 
They  do  not  attempt  to  take  the  place  of  dictionary,  encyclo- 
piedia,  and  such  histories  as  are  within  the  reach  of  ordinary 
students  in  academies  or  high  schools.  When  an  allusion  is  not 
easily  understood,  a  note  briefly  explains  it,  or  at  least  indicates 
wlicre  an  explanation  may  be  found.  In  other  cases  the  pupil 
is  exi)ected  to  rely  on  his  own  efforts,  and  on  such  assistance  as 
his  teacher  may  think  wise  to  give. 


ENuLLSH.  11 


Select  Essays  of  Addison 

With  Macaulay's  Essay  on  Addison.      KditiKi  \3y  Saml'kl 'Iiif  kiikk, 
i2nio,  320  pages;  cloth,  80  cents;  boards,  50  cents. 

THE  purpose  of  this  selection  is  to  interest  young  students  in 
Addison  as  .1  moral  teacher,  a  painter  of  character,  a  liu- 
morist,  and  as  a  writer  of  elegant  English.  Hence  the  editor 
has  aimed  to  bring  together  such  papers  from  the  Spectator^  the 
TatU'r,  the  Guardian,  and  the  Free/ioUer  as  will  prove  most 
readable  to  youth  of  high  school  age,  and  at  the  same  time  give 
something  like  an  adequate  idea  of  the  richness  of  Addison's 
vein.  The  De  Coverley  papers  are  of  course  all  included. 
Papers  describing  eighteenth-century  life  and  manners,  espe- 
cially such  as  best  exhibit  the  writer  in  his  mood  of  playful  satire, 
have  been  drawn  upon  as  i)eculiarly  illustrating  the  Addisonian 
humor.  The  tales  and  allegories,  as  well  as  the  graver  moraliz- 
ings,  have  due  representation,  and  the  beautiful  hymns  are  all 
given. 

Professor  Henry  S.  Pancoast,  Philftdelf>hia :  I  am  delighted  to  find  that 
you  are  continuing  the  work  so  well  tegun  in  the  Macaulay.  1  read  the 
Introduction  with  much  interest,  and  with  a  fresh  sense  of  the  importance 
and  value  of  the  method  of  teaching  you  arc  working  to  advance. 

William  C.  Collar,  Principal  of  Latin  School,  Roxbury,  Afass. :  I  suppose 
thelx»it  thing  I  can  say  is  that  your  lxK>k  will  go  into  our  list  of  books  to 
be  re.id,  and  that  it  will  have  a  permanent  place  in  my  school.  I  believe 
with  all  my  heart  in  your  principks  of  annotation,  and  think  you  are  doing 
a  great  work  for  the  schools. 

Macaulay^s  Essays  on  Milton  and  Addi- 
son 

1 2ino,  boards.    Price,  30  cents. 

THESE  are  reprinted  from  Mr.  Thurbc: 
Macaulay  and    Select   Essays  of  AiUison^   vviihoul    any 
change  in  the  numbering  of  the  pages.     Strongly  and  attrac- 
tively bound,  and  printed  on  good  paper,  this  book  forms  the 
cheapest  and  be.st  editiiin  i)f  these  twti  essavs  for  school  use. 


12  ENGLISH. 


Irving's  Sketch'Book 


With    notes   by  Professor  Elmer  E.  Wkntwortii,  Vassar  College. 
i2nio,  cloth,  426  pages.     Price,  60  cents. 

THIS  is  the  best  and  cheapest  edition  of  the  coini)lcte  Sketcli- 
Book  now  before  the  pubHc.  The  paper  and  press-work 
are  excellent,  and  the  binding  is  strong  and  handsome.  In  his 
notes  the  editor  has  endeavored  to  stimulate,  not  supersede, 
thought  on  the  part  of  the  pupil,  and  so  to  prepare  him  to  read 
with  profit  and  enjoyment  other  literary  masteq)ieces.  What 
success's  has  been  attained  in  this  direction  may  be  estimated 
from  the  following  extracts  from  letters  recently  received  from 
those  who  have  examined  the  book. 

Professor  Wm.   Lyon  Phelps,.  New  Hav.-n,   Conn.:    Please  accept  my 
tlianks  for  your  handsome  edition  of  the  Sketch-Book,  which  seems  to 
me  surprisingly  cheap  in  price  for  such  a  book. 
Professor  Chas.  F.  Richardson,   Dartmoitth  Collef>e^  I/anoi'cr,  N.H. . 
1  thank  you  for  sending  me  Mr.  Wentworth's  well-annotated  edition  of 
Irving's  Sketch-Uook,  a  pleasure  to  the  eye  and  the  hand,  and  sure  to 
aid  in  the  enjoyment  of  an  American  classic. 
Professor  Wm.  H.  Brown,  Johns  Hopkins  Universiiy  :  I  have  to  thank  you 
for  a  copy  of  your  very  neat  edition  of  Irving's  classic  Sketch -Book.     I 
shall  call  the  attention  of  my  classes  to  it  and  its  exceeding  cheapness. 
Irving  H.  Upton,  Principal  of  High  School,  Portsmouth,  N.H.:  I  examined 
it   with  a  great  deal  of  pleasure  arising  from  two  points  in  particular. 
First,  from  the  remarkable  execution  of  the  book  mechanically  and  typo- 
graphically; and,  secondly,  because  of  the  judicious  absence  of  useless  notes. 
Professor  T.  W.  Hunt,  Princeton  College,  N.J. :  Thanks  for  Wentworth's 
neat  and  convenient  edition  of  the  Sketch-Book.      Had  I  seen  it  earlier,  I 
should  have  inserted  it  in  our  catalogue  for  1 893-1 S94. 
Professor  Wm.  E.  Smyser,  De  Pattw  University,  Greencastlc,  I  ml.  ■  I  am 

very  much  pleased  with  the  book  in  ever)'  particular. 
Professor  Edward  A.  Allen,  University  of  Missouri,  Columbia,  Mo.: 
Please  accept  my  thanks  for  a  copy  of  Wentworth's  Irving's  Sketch- 
Book,  which  strikes  me  as  the  best  school  edition  I  have  seen. 
Professor  0.  B.  Clark,  Ripon  College,  Ripon,  Wis. :  Permit  me  to  congratu- 
late you  on  the  beauty  of  the  volume,  on  its  cheapness,  and,  above  all,  on 
the  scholarly  taste,  modest  reserve,  and  encouraging  suggest iveness  of  the 
notes.  Reading  and  study  are  made  to  beget  reading  and  study,  and  the 
appetite  will  surely  grow  with  what  it  feeds  on. 


re  3f.m4 


Ilept, 


THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CAUFORNIA  UBRARY 


